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Financial Times (London,England)

March 15, 2002 Friday
USA Edition 1

Lockerbie bomber appeal rejected

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 45 words

Lockerbie bomber appeal rejected

Appeal judges upheld the conviction of a former Libyan intelligence agent for
planting the bomb on the New York-bound Pan Am jumbo jet that exploded over
Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 killing 270. Britain, Page 8; Failed appeal, Page 6

LOAD-DATE: March 14, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 14, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 1

Binding N-weapons deal with Moscow may be ready by summit, says Rumsfeld

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 430 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The US and Russia yesterday said they would try to agree to legally binding
reductions in their nuclear weapons arsenals by the time US President George W.
Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin meet at a summit in May.

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, said at a news conference in Washington
that the two presidents had "agreed that they would like to have something that
would go beyond their two presidencies. "So some sort of document of that type
is certainly a likelihood."

Sergei Ivanov, Russian defence minister, said that the two sides had exchanged
draft proposals for a future agreement and said he was optimistic that a deal
could be reached before the summit.

The US, which has pledged to cut its nuclear weapons force by two-thirds, has
been reluctant to enter into a formal arms control agreement. The Bush
administration has argued that past arms control arrangements did little to
reduce the overall nuclear threat.

But the US signalled earlier this year that it would accede to Russian wishes
for a formal accord, and the two sides indicated yesterday they had made
progress towards a final agreement.

The two ministers did not say whether they had resolved their differences over
US plans to keep the dismantled nuclear warheads in storage rather than
destroying them permanently, as Russia is seeking. The US plan has triggered
criticisms from Russia, which says it wants any nuclear cuts that are agreed to
be irreversible.

But Mr Ivanov said yesterday that regardless of US plans, Russia would likely
have to destroy some of its warheads.

"It is true that for some period of time those warheads could be stored or
shelved, but the time will inevitably come when those will have to be
destroyed," he said. He added that the same is likely to be true for nuclear
delivery systems.

Mr Rumsfeld also attempted to allay international fears over the disclosure last
weekend of a classified Pentagon document outlining the administration's
thinking on nuclear weapons. The study, known as the nuclear posture review,
broadened the potential targets for US nuclear attacks.

He sought to reassure Russia that, while the US remains concerned about its
"formidable nuclear capabilities," the US no longer sees Russia as an adversary.

However, Russia is one of the seven countries named in the report as possible
targets in a future nuclear conflict. The others are China, Iraq, Iran, North
Korea, Syria and Libya.

Mr Rumsfeld insisted the report "says nothing about targeting any country with
nuclear weapons. The US targets no country on a day-to-day basis".

LOAD-DATE: March 13, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 12, 2002 Tuesday
London Edition 2

Concern greets new US nuclear doctrine: Allies are already nervous about the
widening war on terrorism, writes Edward Alden

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: WAR ON TERROR: THE NEXT PHASE ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 638 words

For most of the cold war, the US and the Soviet Union largely accepted the
doctrine that nuclear weapons were so massively destructive they were good for
only one thing: dissuading other countries from using them.

But with the war on terrorism as the focus of current US strategic doctrine,
military planners have undertaken a thorough rethink of how and when nuclear
weapons might be used in a war against a range of adversaries, such as Iraq,
Iran, North Korea and even Syria and Libya.

The conclusions, contained in the administration's nuclear posture review
presented to Congress in January, are likely to be unsettling for US allies who
are already nervous about the widening war on terrorism.

"This represents a dramatic change in US nuclear policy," said Joseph
Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, a research group. "This is not business as usual."

Two elements in particular stand out from the study.

First, the Pentagon review calls for development of smaller and more accurate
nuclear weapons with special capabilities, for example, for destroying
underground bunkers.

Administration officials argue that such a shift would be intended only to
strengthen deterrence against so-called rogue states that might be tempted to
use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Condoleezza Rice, President George
W. Bush's national security adviser, said the only way to deter the use of such
weapons "is to be clear that it would be met with a devastating response".

But the claim that deterrence is the only goal is weakened by the report's other
main platform: that the US has broadened the circumstances under which it might
be prepared to use nuclear weapons in a war.

In particular, the study indicates the US might use nuclear strikes pre-
emptively against countries developing weapons of mass destruction and could
also do so in the event of large-scale conventional attacks, such as an Iraqi
invasion of Israel or a North Korean invasion of South Korea.

The new doctrine overturns a US policy that dates back to 1978, in which the US
first stated publicly it would not use a nuclear strike against any state that
did not have its own atomic weapons, unless that state attacked the US in
alliance with a nuclear weapon-armed state.

Mr Cirincione argues that the new approach is dangerously provocative by taking
away the previous safe harbour offered to states that refrained from building
their own nuclear weapons. "If you're Iran and you are now being threatened with
a nuclear attack whether or not you've got them, are you better off acquiring
nuclear weapons?"

The disclosures throw a different light on testimony by US officials last month
on the nuclear posture review, which at the time had only been seen by selected
members of Congress.

Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defence for policy, said the administration
envisaged using nuclear weapons not only for deterrence but also "for holding at
risk highly threatening targets that cannot be addressed by other means". In the
future, he said, nuclear weapons would be "integrated with, rather than treated
in isolation from, other military capabilities".

The controversy is the second that the administration has faced over the
classified nuclear posture review, first presented to Congress in early January.

At the time, the administration was focused on its plan to reduce the overall
nuclear arsenal to less than 2,000 warheads but later revealed the warheads
would merely be stored rather than destroyed.

* Russia and the US may not have a planned arms reduction deal ready to sign
when President George W. Bush visits Russia on May 23, Sergei Ivanov, Russia's
defence minister, said yesterday, Robert Cottrell reports from Moscow. Talks
were "moving fairly slowly", Mr Ivanov said.

LOAD-DATE: March 11, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 11, 2002 Monday
London Edition 1

President Bush and the bomb

SECTION: LEADER ; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 641 words

The US administration is determined to prevent the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction, including nuclear as well as chemical and biological devices.

That is both necessary and understandable. Such weapons, in the hands of rogue
states such as Iraq or North Korea, would pose an unacceptable threat not only
to America, but even more immediately to neighbouring states and other US
allies. But Washington must ensure that its own policies do not encourage rather
than discourage such proliferation.

Such a concern is the main worry aroused by the latest Nuclear Posture Review
produced by the Pentagon. The document, secretly tabled in the US Congress in
January but only leaked into the public gaze at the weekend, suggests that new
types of nuclear weapon need to be developed by the US to deal with new
contingencies in which the nuclear option might be used.

Among the countries listed as presenting such "immediate, potential or
unexpected" contingencies are North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. Another
is China, in the case of a military confrontation over Taiwan.

The implication is that the US may be and should be prepared to use nuclear
weapons in a first strike against a country that does not itself necessarily
possess them. Apart from China on the list, only North Korea is thought to
possess enough fissile material to produce a nuclear device. Its capacity to use
it is doubtful.

Nuclear departure

Such a redefinition of US policy would amount to a disturbing departure from the
long-standing US position: that it would not use a nuclear device against a
non-nuclear state that has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The reassurance
was given precisely in order to persuade the maximum number of countries to sign
the treaty. By suggesting that they could still face nuclear attack, even if
they have no nuclear weapons, the Pentagon could merely be giving them an
incentive to develop their own dreadful weapons to retaliate. The Nuclear
Posture Review was not intended for publication. Nor was its thinking meant to
indicate specific targets, according to a Pentagon statement.

The review indicates that a return to nuclear testing may be necessary in order
to develop new types of device, such as "earth-penetrating" nuclear weapons. But
Colin Powell, secretary of state, insists that the administration has no plans
to develop new types of device, nor to resume testing.

Dissonant views

Clarification of US thinking is urgently needed, not least to reconcile the
often dissonant views from the Pentagon and the State Department.

The leaking of the nuclear posture document is likely to complicate the
12-nation visit to Europe and the Middle East on which Vice-President Dick
Cheney embarked yesterday. The prospect of several Middle Eastern countries
being nuclear targets is likely to cause grave concern, even to America's
closest allies.

None of the countries listed by the Pentagon as potential targets for nuclear
attack has many friends. All have been attempting to acquire one or other form
of weapons of mass destruction in recent years. They should be stopped. But
threatening nuclear strikes, whether tacitly or explicitly, is not the way to do
it.

Such threats should not be made unless they are capable of being implemented. If
they are serious, then it suggests a willingness in this US administration to
contemplate the use of nuclear weapons more readily than before. That gives a
very worrying signal to others, such as India and Pakistan, that have just
acquired them.

As the sole superpower, the US possesses an awesome military arsenal, including
its own weapons of mass destruction, with which no other power can compete. But
possessing awesome power brings with it an awesome responsibility to exercise
restraint. That is the message President George W. Bush needs to preach just
now.

LOAD-DATE: March 10, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 11, 2002 Monday
London Edition 2

US signals tougher N-strike response ATTACK WARNING TO 'ROGUE STATES':

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN and BRIAN GROOM

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 494 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON and LONDON

Changes in US nuclear weapons strategy will send a clear message to states such
as Iran, Iraq and North Korea that large scale attacks against the US or its
allies would be met with devastating consequences, top officials said yesterday.

In a significant switch in nuclear planning, the US will focus more on hostile
nations that have or could develop weapons of mass destruction than on
traditional nuclear weapons states such as Russia and China.

Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to President George W. Bush, said on
NBC yesterday that the only way to deter adversaries from using weapons of mass
destruction "is to be clear that it would be met with a devastating response".

The stance, contained in a report presented to Congress in January, was leaked
over the weekend as Dick Cheney, US vice-president, arrived in London yesterday
on the first leg of an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East to discuss
the war on terrorism and the US position on Iraq.

Tony Blair will talk to Mr Cheney at Downing Street today against a background
of cabinet tension over the prospect of US military action against Iraq and
Britain's possible support for it.

That tension surfaced yesterday when Clare Short, international development
secretary, told the BBC that while failing to address Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction "could bring disaster to the world", all-out military attack "is of
course not at all sensible".

The Pentagon report, called the Nuclear Posture review, names Libya and Syria as
countries at which US nuclear deterrence should be aimed and risks alarming Arab
and European allies. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's influential former
president, said yesterday the US was trying to intimidate other nations.

The report raises the possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against such
states and calls for the development of nuclear missiles that could penetrate
underground bunkers thought to harbour dangerous weapons programmes.

The US might use a nuclear strike to destroy enemy stockpiles of chemical or
biological weapons or to respond to conventional attacks such as an Iraqi
invasion of Israel or a North Korean attack on South Korea, according to the New
York Times, which obtained a copy of the report.

US officials attempted yesterday to play down the report, stressing that it
represents a "posture" rather than a "policy".

Colin Powell, US secretary of state, said on CBS News yesterday that the US had
no plans to develop new nuclear weapons or to resume testing.

He also pointed out that US nuclear arms were not aimed at any particular
adversary.

Mr Powell said other countries should not be alarmed by what he called "sound
conceptual planning . . . We should not get all carried away with some sense
that the US is planning to use nuclear weapons in some contingency that is
coming up in the near future. It is not the case." Short argues, Page 2 'Axis of
evil', Page 7 Editorial Comment, Page 22 www.ft.com/terror

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 8, 2002 Friday
London Edition 2

Threats grow as Zimbabwe count beckons: Mugabe has pledged retribution and his
party has made it known it would back a coup if the opposition wins, says Tony
Hawkins

BYLINE: By TONY HAWKINS

SECTION: AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 597 words

Thirty-six hours before polling stations open for Zimbabwe's make-or-break
presidential election, there is mounting anxiety over the likely extent of
official vote-rigging and the possible consequences of a government attempt to
nullify the result.

President Robert Mugabe ratcheted up his rhetoric of violence with a warning of
"retribution" against the country's 60,000 or so remaining whites. "No murderer
will go unpunished," said Mr Mugabe, adding: "We'll see this issue to its
conclusion once this (election) is out of the way."

Mr Mugabe's rhetoric was matched by that of Didymus Mutasa, the ruling party's
external affairs spokesman. He told South African Television that "the majority
did not want to live under a Movement for Democratic Change government.

"If there were to be a coup, we would support it very definitely," he said.

But Morgan Tsvangirai, the presidential candidate for the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change, ruled out any chance of a post election coup.

"The people's victory at a weekend poll is now certain" he said. "The people
will vote for change and for answers to the burning issues of the day -
starvation, food shortages, economic collapse, joblessness and the ever
increasing prices of food and basic commodities".

There is growing concern over the increasingly chaotic administrative
arrangements for the election. One opposition official said last night that if
there was a large turnout - as widely anticipated - it might be necessary to
extend the two-day poll for another four days so that everyone had a chance to
vote. This is because, in an effort to keep urban voting to a minimum, the
government has more than halved the number of polling stations in the country's
most heavily populated areas.

The mood of trepidation is apparent too in business. "Nothing is moving, said an
estate agent. "No-one is willing to make decisions at this stage". Most
multinationals have kept a very low profile throughout the campaign, conscious
that support for Mr Tsvangirai could make them vulnerable to retribution.

The Mugabe administration has built close links with local businesses and banks
that have helped finance government contracts, including those linked to the
nation's military involvement in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. However its connections with international business are limited.

Some eyebrows were raised recently when Anglo American appointed a Zanu-PF
political heavyweight to the board of one of its mining companies in Zimbabwe.

Swimming against the tide, two big South African companies, ABSABank and Impala
Platinum, have invested in Zimbabwe in the last two years, despite the rapidly
deteriorating economic situation. ABSA owns 26 per cent of the Commercial Bank
of Zimbabwe, which handles the country's oil transactions with Libya as well as
playing a prominent role in other government financing deals.

Gideon Gono, its chief executive, is a Mugabe loyalist who serves as chairman of
the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, which plays a central role in the
president's re-election campaign.

Mr Mugabe is backed also by white business tycoon, John Bredenkamp, one of a
number of prominent white and black businessmen for whom a Mugabe defeat would
be a serious setback, especially since the MDC has plans to convene a Truth and
Justice Commission, to investigate how the government managed to spend as much
money as it did during the 1990s.

By contrast, the MDC, while supported by the bulk of the white electorate of no
more than 15,000 voters, does not have close ties with business.

LOAD-DATE: March 7, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 7, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 2

Syria voices support for Saudi peace plan

BYLINE: By GARETH SMYTH

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 405 words

DATELINE: BEIRUT

Syria yesterday indicated that a Saudi Arabian peace plan includes the right of
return of Palestinian refugees while imposing strict conditions for Arab-Israeli
peace.

The official Syrian news agency Sana reported that Syria's views were "identical
with the ideas presented by the Saudi Crown prince", following the visit of
Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to Jeddah on Monday.

Crown Prince Abdullah launched his "peace plan" more than two weeks ago,
reviving an old idea of "land for peace" by which Israel would leave occupied
Arab land in return for recognition by the Arab states.

Despite discussions with European and Arab diplomats, the Saudis have not as yet
elaborated on what one Saudi official has called a "vision" designed to "send a
signal to the Israeli public that peace is possible".

Syria hosts many radical Palestinian groups in Damascus and has given strong
rhetorical support to the Palestinian uprising.

"So much was unstated in Crown Prince Abdullah's formulation that everyone seems
free to interpret it as he sees fit," said an analyst in Damascus yesterday.

The rapport between Mr Assad and Crown Prince Abdullah makes it likely that -
with the exception of Iraq and Libya - an Arab summit in Beirut later this month
will endorse the Saudi initiative in some form.

But this does not make Syria's conditions acceptable to Israel.

Sana said Syria and Saudi Arabia had agreed that a "just and comprehensive
peace" required "full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories,
including from the Syrian Golan Heights to the line of June 4 1967" as well as
"the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its
capital" and "the right of the (Palestinian) refugees' return in accordance with
related UN resolutions".

Israel has consistently refused to accept the line of June 4 1967 in the Golan
as a basis for negotiation. It is committed to Jerusalem as its "eternal and
indivisible capital" and regards the return to Israel of 3.6m Palestinian
refugees as a threat to its existence.

* Kamal Kharrazi, Iran's foreign minister, expressed his guarded endorsement of
the Saudi initiative, in contrast to hardliners in Iran who have rejected the
proposal outright, Najmeh Bozorgmehr adds from Tehran.

He did not say, however, whether Iran supported the prospect of relations with
Israel if it withdrew to pre-1967 borders. For regional reports,
www.ft.com/mideastafrica

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 4, 2002 Monday
London Edition 2

US poised to press Egypt over Iraq action

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 425 words

DATELINE: CAIRO

US President George W. Bush is likely to use the parlous state of Egypt's
economy to ratchet up pressure on Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader, to support
US policies in the Middle East when the two men meet in Washington tomorrow,
diplomats in Cairo said at the weekend.

A likely resumption of US hostilities against Iraq is likely to top the agenda
although it seems that Mr Mubarak has little room for manoeuvre on the issue.

Egyptians have little affection for Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, but there
is widespread sympathy for the suffering of Iraqi civilians during the years of
US-led sanctions following the first Gulf war in 1991.

Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, is due in Egypt next week as part of an
international tour, which is viewed as paving the way for possible renewed
action against Baghdad.

Also on the agenda in Washington is likely to be the spiralling conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians.

Egypt has voiced support for the peace plan put forward by Crown Prince Abdullah
of Saudi Arabia to break the deadlock of 17 months of violence. But there is
little disguising the fact that Cairo has been a spectator during the latest
round of diplomatic activity.

Washington, however, is likely to expect Egypt to play its traditional
moderating role at an Arab summit in Beirut at the end of March, which will
examine the initiative, diplomats said.

As far as Mr Mubarak is concerned, Egypt currently finds itself in an unusually
weak position in negotiations with Washington.

With a floundering economy, Cairo currently needs all the financial support it
can find. A proposed fast-disbursing, compensatory financing facility from the
International Monetary Fund is making only slow progress, officials say.

Pressure on the Egyptian pound has eased with the end of the haj pilgrimage and
subsequent holiday period but widespread reports of difficulties in the payments
system persist.

Meanwhile, Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has become the first Arab leader
to publicly oppose Prince Abdullah's plan. Mr Gaddafi, speaking on Saturday,
also threatened to leave the Arab League, the umbrella grouping of 22 countries
of the Arab world.

The latest outburst by the Libyan leader prompted Amr Moussa, the
secretary-general of the Arab League, to hurry to Libya yesterday to placate Mr
Gadaffi.

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, who was paying his first official visit
to Lebanon yesterday, also implicitly played down the Saudi initiative by
stressing the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

LOAD-DATE: March 3, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 4, 2002 Monday
USA Edition 1

Libyan agency invests in Fiat NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By FRED KAPNER

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE INTERNATIONAL ; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 224 words

DATELINE: MILAN

Libyan agency invests in Fiat

Sixteen years after the US forced Giovanni Agnelli, Fiat chairman, to get rid of
Libya's foreign investment agency as one of the industrial group's main
investors, the agency is back. Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Co (Lafico)
recently acquired 2.3 per cent of the Italian car, truck and engineering group's
stock, Italian stock market regulator Consob said.

The investment, through purchases on the open market, came as Fiat's shares hit
a 10-year low last week. It also comes after Lafico acquired 5.3 per cent of
Juventus, the Agnelli-owned football club that had an initial public offering in
December. Lafico also owns 5 per cent of Banca di Roma, one of Italy's largest
banks in which Toro, the Fiat-owned insurance company, owns 10 per cent.

Lafico bought 15 per cent of Fiat in 1976 when the group was in dire need of
cash. US threats to bar Fiat from bidding on government contracts eventually led
the company to find other investors who bought out the Libyan agency at a costly
premium in 1986.

Mr Agnelli, now honorary chairman of the company founded by his grandfather,
said the purchase by Lafico "indicates that its relationship with the Americans
has changed", adding that Libyans had "demonstrated a desire to distance
themselves from certain forms of dangerous radicalism". Fred Kapner, Milan

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 22, 2002 Friday
London Edition 1

Pariah nations ponder changing their ways: 'Rogue' states, particularly Iraq,
are braced for the next phase of the US war on terrorism, and strategic concerns
are leading some to show readiness to change their behaviour, writes Roula
Khalaf

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 980 words

As theUS bombardmentof Afghanistan reached a climax in December and the Taliban
regime was swept aside, a different kind of offensive was under preparation in
another troubled region more than 2,000 miles away.

By January in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader and long-time enemy of
the US, was dispatching his diplomats to Arab capitals with soothing words of
reconciliation. In public statements too, he hinted at Iraq's willingness to
compromise and strike a deal with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to resolve lingering
resentments from the Gulf war.

The charm offensive, noted Arab officials, was a typical manoeuvre by a master
of political survival, who had wrongly calculated that the US campaign in
Afghanistan would turn into a political quagmire for Washington. Instead, Mr
Saddam realised, he faced the prospect of being Washington's next target, now US
military strength had been proved capable of forcefully and swiftly toppling the
Taliban.

"The lessons learned from Afghanistan are primarily about the US's ability to
bring about a regime change," says a western diplomat. "Inevitably parallels
were immediately drawn in Washington between the Northern Alliance and the Iraqi
opposition, even if they don't hold up analytically."

The display of US military power in Afghanistan promises to alter the nature of
the stand-off between the US and the countries it labels as "rogue" states.

Analysts predict, however, that the impulse for a radical change in behaviour
will be greater among the second category of pariah states - countries such as
Yemen, Sudan and Libya - than in the more hardline Iraq, Iran and North Korea,
now the focus of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil".

Despite Mr Saddam's overtures and the possibility of more room for compromise,
Arab officials say he is unlikely to satisfy the tough US demands, which include
providing unfettered access to intrusive United Nations weapons inspectors,
without the promise of an immediate lifting of the UN embargo.

Meanwhile, the attitudes of leaders in Sudan, Libya and Yemen have already
changed. The threat of US military force alone drove the leaderships of the
three countries to declare their support for the US-led anti-terror campaign.

The shift in Libya, which suffered US military strikes in 1986, may be the most
impressive. Colonel Muammer Gadaffi has taken full advantage of the current
climate and rushed to share intelligence information with Washington in the hope
that this will pave the way for a resumption of diplomatic relations with the
US.

In Yemen, where US investigators had long complained of a lack of sufficient
co-operation on terrorism, the government has now made the strategic decision to
back the US, removing the country from the list of potential military targets.

Analysts, however, say Mr Bush stepped up pressure on the most dangerous states
- Iraq, Iran and North Korea - in his "axis of evil" speech because the
Afghanistan victory alone was not a sufficient deterrent for countries
apparently determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

"Afghanistan reveals the resolve on the part of the Bush administration to
commit military force and power but the problem is that you cannot rely on
audacious military victory in Afghanistan to deter states inclined to counter US
power," says Jonathan Stevenson, editor of the Strategic Survey, a publication
of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Europe, which has been a strategic partner in the US anti-terror campaign, has
been dismayed by Washington's toughening approach. European officials argue that
instead of bolstering US deterrence, hardline policies shut the door to
political dialogue, emboldening extremists in Iran and undermining South Korea's
opening towards the North.

"The show of force might increase the resentment of the US in these (rogue)
states, and raise the incentive of these states to empower themselves against
it. It might drive them further underground," says Mr Stevenson.

Geoffrey Kemp, director of regional strategic programmes at the Nixon Center in
Washington, notes some countries are more vulnerable to intimidation than Iraq
and Iran. "Iran is too big and bloody-minded, and in the short term what you
might do is accelerate the opening between Iraq and Iran," he says.

From a military perspective, the US could easily target Iran's nuclear reactors.
But the political fall-out would be costly. As to Iraq, despite a seemingly
growing momentum for applying the Afghanistan model, the US is proceeding with
caution and damping expectations of an imminent strike.

"There are some people in this town who think we should've moved directly to
Baghdad and taken the region by surprise. But even the hawks are now arguing we
can't afford to fail and we have to do it thoroughly," says a Washington policy
analyst. "So the rhetoric of

'Show of force might drive them underground' the president's speech is being
balanced by some hard-nosed military checks, which the military is forcing on
the debate."

As the euphoria of the Afghanistan victory fades, the challenges of a campaign
against Iraq become more apparent. Would airstrikes be used to promote upheavals
on the ground or provoke a coup against Mr Saddam, for example, or would the US
be forced to invade?

Iraq's army has been severely weakened since the Gulf war but it still counts
375,000 men, with well-equipped units of the Republican Guards and Special
Republican Guards loyal to Mr Saddam. The Iraqi opposition - the Kurds in the
north and the Shias in the south - are not as well trained as Afghanistan's
Northern Alliance. "With a little bit of distance, people are now realising that
it's a big mistake to extract too many lessons from Afghanistan and apply them
elsewhere," says Mr Stevenson. This is the final story in a series. See previous
articles on: www.ft.com/usmilitary

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 20, 2002 Wednesday
USA Edition 2

Clear policy is a good start

BYLINE: By JOHN A ADAMS

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 265 words

From Mr John A. Adams Jr.

Sir, I have read with some interest your recent columns on the "axis of evil"
uproar that seems to concern some in the European community.

I find it most intriguing that many express surprise at US will and leadership.
It is about time.

Given the lost decade of the 1990s, when no firm American policy toward
terrorist acts was articulated after nearly a score of major incidents, many are
pleased that measures were taken by President George W. Bush to draw a line in
the sand on such dastardly terrorist activities. Thus it is refreshing to know
we now have a president and secretary of state with a clear message.

Terrorism will not be tolerated. This in no way means some instant stoppage of
such acts - but a clear policy is a good start. And, the US's clear statement
and response to terror should comfort Christopher Patten concerning his comments
on friends and sycophants!

Last, the support from our allies in Europe is paramount. However, in the case
of terrorist acts, and to respond to those who have vowed to kill us, action
should be swift, timely and as complete as possible. This has not always been
the case. I remember some years ago, when clear terrorist targets were
identified in Libya and the US was delayed for days as France refused
over-flight of our F-111s from England, all the while information was leaked to
the terrorists, who moved their training camps.

Thus, do not be perplexed by the US's direct leadership but instead be pleased
that there are those who are willing to act accordingly.

John A. Adams Jr, Laredo, TX 78044, US

LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 14, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 1

From Blue Spoon to a Just Cause: MILITARY BRANDING: Without industry's
resources, the US has yet to perfect the art of naming wartime operations,
writes Richard Tomkins:

BYLINE: By RICHARD TOMKINS

SECTION: INSIDE TRACK ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 1201 words

As Lt Col Gregory Sieminski tells it, the US was on the point of invading Panama
in 1989 when Lt Gen Thomas Kelly, operations officer on the joint staff,
received a call from Gen James Lindsay, commander-in-chief of Special Operations
Command.

The general, it turned out, wanted something changed: not the invasion plan but
the seemingly insignificant detail of its name. "Do you want your grandchildren
to say you were in Blue Spoon?" he asked.

The general had a point, Lt Gen Kelly conceded: the name was a little
uninspiring. After hanging up the phone, he turned to his deputy. "How about
Just Action?" he suggested. "How about Just Cause?" his deputy shot back. And so
was born the fashion for branding military campaigns.

Since 1989, public relations has played an important role in the naming of big
US operations. Yet the naming of the campaign launched by the US after September
11 shows that the military has some way to go before perfecting the art.

After initially naming the operation Infinite Justice, the US Department of
Defence was quickly forced into an embarrassing change after the Council on
American-Islamic Relations complained that infinite justice was something only
God could dispense. The new name, Enduring Freedom, has survived; but it sounds
too propagandistic for comfort and lacks the spine-tingling panache of a Rolling
Thunder or a Desert Storm.

The definitive history of the naming of military operations was written by Lt
Col Sieminski in the autumn 1995 edition of Parameters, the US Army War College
magazine. He tells how it started in the first world war when the Germans began
giving code names such as Mars and Achilles to campaigns, mainly to preserve
operational security.

In the second world war, the US and Britain trawled the English dictionary to
come up with thousands of potential code names that were randomly applied to
operations. But Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, was fond of
overriding the system with his own preferences: it was he who insisted that the
1944 Normandy invasion, originally dubbed Roundhammer, should be renamed
Overlord, creating the best-known campaign name of the war.

Churchill was so fascinated with code names that he set out a list of guidelines
for inventing them. Names should not "imply a boastful or over-confident
sentiment", he said, or, conversely, have "an air of despondency"; they should
not be names of living people; and they should not be frivolous. No mother, he
decreed, should have "to say that her son was killed in an operation called
Bunnyhug or Ballyhoo".

Churchill's efforts notwithstanding, second world war operation names had little
effect on shaping public attitudes because they were classified until the war
had ended. This started to change only with the outbreak of the Korean war, when
General Douglas MacArthur decided to declassify names once operations had begun.

Mostly, these were meaningless code names. But in the Korean and Vietnam wars,
the US military more than once stirred controversy by adopting particularly
aggressive names such as Operation Killer (Korea) and Operation Masher
(Vietnam). In 1975, this resulted in the introduction of US guidelines that are
still in force today.

Noting that poorly chosen names can be "counter-productive", the guidelines say
names must not "express a degree of bellicosity inconsistent with traditional
American ideals or current foreign policy", be "offensive to good taste or
derogatory to a particular group, sect or creed", be "offensive to (US) allies
or other Free World nations" or employ "exotic words, trite expressions or well
known commercial trademarks".

In the first 14 years after the introduction of these rules, most names chosen
were meaningless word pairs such as Eldorado Canyon, used for the 1986 raid on
Libya. But in 1989, Just Cause opened the US military's eyes to the possibility
of using names to shape public perceptions.

Since then, the public relations effort has been a hit-and-miss affair. As Lt
Col Sieminski points out, Just Cause itself was flawed, insisting as it did on
the mission's morality.

"However righteous an operation might appear to be, a name like Just Cause can
be distasteful to the media and general public, not necessarily because they
disagree with the justness of the cause but because they resent having such
words put . ..in their mouths," Lt Col Sieminski wrote.

More prudent names, he suggested, reinforced policy objectives by emphasising
the mission and its rationale - and the best ones achieved this with a memorable
metaphor. Desert Storm did this so successfully that it became synonymous with
the Gulf war.

Last month S. B. Master, founder and president of Master-McNeil, a US brand
consultant, took Lt Col Sieminski's work further by analysing what made the best
names work. In an article in Admap, an advertising industry magazine, she
concluded that tone, sound, rhythm and length were essential ingredients.

Many names - such as Noble Obelisk or Productive Effort - failed to work, she
said, because they "just sounded wrong": they were too long, adopted the wrong
tone ("too wimpy or too bellicose"), lacked a pleasing rhythm or employed a
displeasing succession of letter sounds.

A feature of the most successful names on her list was their metre or rhythm.
Most, such as Desert Storm and Shining Hope, employed a short-short-long pattern
known as the anapaest (although, confusingly, a classicist would view these as
long-short-long, or cretics). The next most common pattern, as in Able Sentry
and Distant Runner, employed a pair of short-short pyrrhics (although a
classicist would call them long-short trochees).

"There is clearly something about the energy and motion of the first two
syllables, combined with the finality and strength of the final long syllable,
that makes the anapaest form particularly appropriate and satisfying for
campaign names," Ms Master said.

Another characteristic of the successful names was the adjective-noun
construction: a direct, vivid adjective such as "quick", "early", "desert" or
"bright", followed by a punchy noun such as "hope", "flash", "strike" or
"storm". The best of these nouns also functioned as verbs, giving the names an
appealing tone of determined action.

By most measures, Enduring Freedom fails as a name. The length and rhythm are
both wrong and its tone falls into the same trap as Just Cause, sounding overly
moralistic and self-righteous.

Why does the US military continue to make such bad choices? In its defence, Ms
Master says it has to think up these names in a great hurry and does not have
the luxury of the private sector's financial resources, access to market
research and so on. "And the people who do this are not professional namers.
It's not their full-time job - and it's not easy to get it right."

Based on her own research, Ms Master concludes that a better name for Enduring
Freedom - one with two words, three syllables, anapaest metre and a vivid
adjective followed by a punchy noun that also functions as a verb - would have
been Freedom Ring: which perhaps serves to demonstrate that it is easier to
criticise other people's names than to come up with a good one of your own.

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 14, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 2

Iran's bid to join WTO is blocked by US

BYLINE: By FRANCES WILLIAMS

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY & LATIN AMERICA ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 321 words

DATELINE: GENEVA

The US, backed by Israel, yesterday again blocked Iran's application to join the
World Trade Organisation, further underscoring the divide between Washington and
its European allies, which favour strengthening economic and trade relations
with Tehran.

Iran first applied to open WTO membership talks in 1996. But under the WTO's
system of consensus decision-making the US managed to prevent the request even
coming up for discussion until May last year, when developing countries insisted
it be put on the agenda of the WTO's ruling general council.

At that time there were hopes that a US review of relations with Iran might lead
Washington to allow the establishment of a WTO working party to negotiate Iran's
terms of entry. But though US officials told the general council yesterday that
the review was continuing, any such hopes have now been dashed by Iran's
inclusion, alongside Iraq and North Korea, in US President George W. Bush's
"axis of evil".

"That was the kiss of death for Iran's WTO application," said a European
diplomat. "There's no possibility from the US standpoint that it could take any
positive step even in the medium term."

Washington has also privately served notice that it will continue to block
recent requests for WTO membership from Syria and Libya.

The European Union has said it supports Iran's wish to join the WTO, though
member states are split on how far to go in openly criticising the US position.
Brussels plans to press ahead with a trade deal with Tehran, which it sees as
encouraging economic and social reform in the country, and is backing WTO
membership for others in the region including Syria and Libya.

The EU also is negotiating an association accord with Syria as part of ambitious
plans to create a Europe-Mediterranean free trade area by 2010.

Washington's objections to Syria and Libya are said to concern their support for
the Arab League's trade boycott of Israel.

LOAD-DATE: February 13, 2002

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1014 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

February 8, 2002 Friday
London Edition 2

Korean border starts to look 'scary' again

BYLINE: By ANDREW WARD

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 806 words

DATELINE: SEOUL

President George W. Bush's inclusion of North Korea in an "axis of evil" that
threatens the US has thrust the secretive north-east Asian state, known as the
Hermit Kingdom, into the international spotlight and widened the parameters of
the war against terror.

By including Kim Jong-il's communist regime in the list of potential future
targets, Mr Bush signalled that the war against terror was not limited to
Islamic terrorists and their backers but could be widened to any country that
threatened the US with weapons of mass destruction.

With enough plutonium for at least one and possibly two nuclear weapons, an
estimated 5,000 tonnes of biochemical weapons and missiles that could soon be
capable of hitting the US, North Korea fits the widened criteria of Mr Bush's
war.

But Seoul is lobbying the US to tone down its rhetoric ahead of Mr Bush's visit
to South Korea on February 20. It fears that Washington's tough approach
threatens the stability that has settled on the divided peninsula in recent
years and fails to recognise progress achieved through South Korean President
Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine" policy of engagement with its hostile neighbour.

Although North Korea is listed by the US as a terrorist-sponsoring nation
following a spate of overseas bombings in the 1980s, it has kept its hands clean
recently. Pyongyang condemned the September 11 attacks and signed two
international anti-terrorism treaties last year.

Despite the country's nuclear capabilities, it has frozen production of
weapons-grade plutonium and stopped test-firing ballistic missiles in return for
construction of two power stations funded by the US and its allies.

While Mr Kim's military regime continues to suppress its impoverished people and
maintain its barriers against the capitalist world, there are signs of change:
all except two European Union nations have diplomatic ties with Pyongyang,
foreign tourists have been invited to attend a festival in the country this
spring and inter-Korean dialogue, although faltering, has reduced tension on the
peninsula.

"In terms of current evil, North Korea ranks considerably lower than the other
two in this axis," says Robert Einhorn, who negotiated with Pyongyang as
president Bill Clinton's assistant secretary for nonproliferation.

Analysts say North Korea's inclusion in the "axis of evil" helps Washington
argue that the war against terror is not a war against Islam. Mr Bush needs to
highlight the threat posed by Pyongyang to justify his planned national missile
defence shield because North Korea is the only rogue state with the near-term
potential to launch an intercontinental missile.

However, while it may be in Mr Bush's political interests to emphasise the
direct threat posed by North Korea,

Washington's most pressing concern is Pyongyang's thriving missile export
business. Defence analysts name Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria and Libya as
customers.

"If there is one North Korean activity that can be considered roguish, it is its
export of missiles," says Mr Einhorn. "They are the world's number one
proliferator of missile technology and they sell without discrimination to
anyone that will pay the money."

But if proliferation is the most compelling reason for North Korea's inclusion
in the "axis of evil", it is unclear what Mr Bush plans to do about it.

"We're not dealing with an Iraq situation where the US could move in 2,000
troops and defeat Iraq with impunity," says Mr Einhorn. "North Korea has a lot
of artillery along the border that could reach Seoul. That's why they are so
dangerous because they can threaten to kill hundreds of thousands of people with
credibility."

Washington has a number of non-military options. Arms shipments from North Korea
to the Middle East could be intercepted; aid could be cut; and construction of
the two power plants pledged as part of the 1994 arms control deal could be
halted. All three actions would further damage North Korea's disintegrating
economy, though. Some analysts fear that North Korea could lash out if backed
into a corner by the US.

"The concern is that here is a country we do not understand, which has done some
unpredictable things in the past and has its hands on some nasty technology,"
says David Smith, arms control specialist at the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington. "If they know they are going down, are they
going to go down fighting?"

With little prospect of Mr Kim being overthrown from within and the military
option unappealing, negotiation still appears the most fruitful method of
bringing about change.

But the 49-year-old border that separates the two Koreas along the 38th
parallel, where enemy soldiers glower at each other across a 4km-wide
demilitarised zone, once again looks like, in Mr Clinton's words, "the most
scary place on earth". www.ft.com/terror

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 6, 2002 Wednesday
London Edition 2

Enterprise outlines strategy OIL & GAS GROUP HOPES REFOCUS WILL HELP IT REMAIN
INDEPENDENT:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK AND IRELAND ; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 570 words

Sam Laidlaw, Enterprise Oil's new chief executive, yesterday announced cost
cuts, a refocus of its exploration efforts and higher output targets in a
strategy to keep his embattled company independent.

In a sign of his activist style, Mr Laidlaw announced a series of deals to
increase Enterprise's stakes in the North Sea, Brazil and Russia. He signalled
the company's probable pull-out from Iran, but likely entry into north Africa.

He also said a reduction in the workforce at the company's London headquarters
from 300 to 200 would save Pounds 20m, with another Pounds 10m savings coming
from elsewhere in the business.

The recent takeover approach from Eni of Italy had been "useful", Mr Laidlaw
said, because it helped galvanise the company.

Some shareholders complained that Enterprise had rejected Eni's approach without
informing them, but Mr Laidlaw promised that "if someone were to come along with
a full offer - and we've not had one - which reflects the full value of the
company, the board would take it seriously".

The strategy presentation coincided with disclosure of Enterprise's 2001
results. This showed post-tax profits falling from Pounds 407.4m in 2000 to
Pounds 274.4m, struck after a Pounds 32.9m exceptional cost to settle a rig
dispute.

This was in line with expectations and came on the back of lower oil prices and
a 14 per cent drop in production to 243,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day
(boed).

Promising that he would raise production back up to 260,000 boed by the end of
2002, Mr Laidlaw set a target to lift output by 7 per cent a year over the
medium term.

Iain Reid of UBS Warburg said Mr Laidlaw had "turned a negative into a positive"
by using a lower base to set a higher target. But this year's output would still
be lower than what Enterprise produced in 2000.

Mr Laidlaw said he planned to centralise exploration around a new director with
the aim of finding more oil and gas with less money.

Less capital would be allocated to "high risk, long-cycle deepwater projects"
and more to "proven plays, including rehabilitation projects" such as those that
Enterprise was seeking in Libya and Algeria.

Mr Laidlaw also said he had used his three months at Enterprise to concentrate
investment in some areas. The company had bought Odebrecht's Brazilian assets
for Dollars 153m (Pounds 105m) to give it 80 per cent of the Bijupira Salema
field, which it also operates. For Pounds 23m and an asset swap, it had
increased its stake in the UK's Pierce field to 92.5 per cent. And in Russia, it
had paid Pounds 20m to raise its stake in KMOC from 27 to 46 per cent.

Enterprise may cut its losses in Iran where it has so far invested Dollars 9m in
part of the South Pars gas project. In addition to buy-back contracts that limit
foreign companies' profitability, Mr Laidlaw said South Pars suffered from
commercial complexity and construction cost overruns, and required "a radical
rethink".

He gave some higher reserve estimates for Enterprise's interests in the North
Sea and Italy, which he said were "not fully in the market".

In an innovative deal, Enterprise has signed up Innogy, the UK utility, to take
most of its uncommitted UK, Norwegian and Irish gas for an initial three years.
Enterprise plans to increase the share of gas in its output from 15 to 25 per
cent by 2004, and believes the deal will help it sell more Norwegian gas into
the UK. Observer, Page 17 Lex, Page 18

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 2, 2002 Saturday
London Edition 1

Juventus' top-league brand should meet investor goals

BYLINE: By FRANCO BENOFFI-GAMBAROVA

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 276 words

From Mr Franco Benoffi-Gambarova.

Sir, I refer to Simon Kuper's article "Irrational exuberance in the directors'
box" (FT Weekend January 26-27). I certainly admit "the irrational exuberance"
of the values gained in the recent past by the shares of soccer teams - probably
a herd effect.

Nevertheless, I disagree with Mr Kuper when he generalises and applies his
considerations to different cases, including that of the recently floated
Juventus of Italy. In the case of Juventus - which perhaps I know more about
than Mr Kuper for the simple reason that I live in Italy - we should recognise
that, first, in Italy the team has developed into a universal brand. It is loved
and has supporters from the north to the south of the country.

Second, appropriate use of the brand name, as designed in the strategic plan of
the company, should reasonably put Juventus in the class of an overall
entertainment company. I am not saying this business model is new, but I would
emphasise that the specific circumstances in this case should make it
successful. And the balance sheets of the past three years demonstrate that a
soccer club can generate profits, provided that soccer is not its only activity.

Third, Juventus has a real expertise in professional management and it should be
able to sell this know-how to newly developed countries.

Fourth, as far as Libya is concerned, Al-Saadi Gadaffi is correct when he says
that sport is important to his country. He was very clever when he decided to
invest in Juventus, and will certainly benefit in terms of total shareholder
return and in other ways.

Franco Benoffi-Gambarova, Via Aspromonte 52, Lecco, Italy

LOAD-DATE: February 1, 2002

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1017 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

February 2, 2002 Saturday
London Edition 1 20020202W112.905

The safari jacket

BYLINE: By NICHOLAS FOULKES

SECTION: HOW TO SPEND IT ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 1126 words

CLASSIC LINES NICHOLAS FOULKES

Doubtless debate will rage for decades before posterity agrees upon Yves Saint
Laurent's finest achievement. But I have already made up my mind. I came to my
conclusion long before his valedictory show where, surrounded by muses and
gorgeous girls, he wallowed in the plaudits of a devoted public and an almost
unanimously adoring press.

Had dear old Yves hung up his tape measure and switched off his sewing machine
during the early 1970s, he would still have accomplished his greatest work: the
immortalisation of the safari jacket.

In May 1969, a photograph taken by Helmut Newton showed the epicene designer,
his face surrounded by a halo of blow-dried hair, with his arm draped around the
shoulder of his sister. Both were wearing almost interchangeable safari suits:
his was olive, hers white; his buttoned at the front, hers laced up. Together,
they epitomised the unisex spirit of the age.

In a way, Saint Laurent's safari jacket was even more daring than his "Le
Smoking" look of the mid-1960s. That was an exercise to show that trousers on
women could be sexy, not just Sapphic. The safari suit was a masterstroke,
taking one of the most butch, overtly macho garments in the sartorial pantheon
and commandeering it as the uniform for his generation.

Had Papa Hemingway not committed suicide by then, I am sure the knowledge that
an effete, overtly homosexual dress designer had remade his signature garment
into the chosen clothing of a decadently androgynous era, would have been
sufficient to push him over the edge.

"It appears that they developed out of military tropical uniforms," says Roger
Mitchell, of gunsmith Holland and Holland, about the murky genesis of the safari
jacket in Africa during the early 1900s. The evolutionary course of this garment
becomes plain when looking at photographs taken during the German East Africa
campaign in the first world war. One, taken in August 1917 of Donald Seth-Smith,
father of big-game hunter Tony Seth-Smith, shows him in a uniform, which, but
for the Sam Brown belt and the highly polished metal buttons, is almost
identical to a safari jacket right down to the big, baggy bellows pockets for
holding a fistful of ammunition or binoculars.

According to Mitchell, such uniforms "were made out of spinnaker sail cloth" and
it is from this fabric that "Spinker Drill, a very dense cotton" used in the
making of safari jackets, has evolved. It is sturdy enough to survive life in
the wild - and the robust attentions of a camp laundress who either boiled
washing in a pot or beat it against a stone on the river bed - yet light enough
to be worn in the equatorial heat.

But if the hunters of the Happy Valley days after the first world war were
content to adapt army tunics to suit the requirements of life in the bush,
Hemingway was after something more befitting to the most manly of men of
letters. He turned to sporting goods emporium Abercrombie & Fitch.

In its day, Abercrombie & Fitch was a remarkable temple to the outdoor life, in
the middle of Manhattan: a place where you could buy a trampoline for exercising
your dog, a hot-air balloon, a set of throwing knives or a suit of chainmail. A
log cabin on the roof of the 12-storey building it occupied on Madison Avenue
served as the townhouse of co-founder

Ezra Fitch. Next to that cabin was a casting pool for fishermen and, in the
basement, an armoured rifle range.

The place might have been built for Hemingway. Certainly, safari jacket No 476
incorporated a special touch requested by Papa: a pocket on the sleeve, which,
depending on the story you choose to believe, hold a packet of cigarettes or a
pair of spectacles.

The safari jacket became shorthand for a kind of overt uncompromising and
uncompromised masculinity: John Huston wore one on the set of The Misfits. But
by far the most memorable cinematic outing for the safari jacket was the 1953
melodrama Mogambo in which Clark Gable dominated the screen with just a rifle
and an impeccably cut safari jacket.

However, if Hemingwayesque he-men and their safari jackets came to epitomise the
Mogambo machismo of the big-game-hunting years, Yves Saint Laurent's
reinterpretation threw it open to the fashion crowd. A hybrid of the safari suit
even wound up as official dress in the upper echelons of Zairean Society during
the Rumble in the Jungle years of the 1970s.

In his 1975 essay "A New King for the Congo: Mobutu and the Nihilism of Africa",
V.S. Naipaul describes the change that came over Mobutu's wardrobe. "As General
Mobutu, he used to be photographed in army uniform. Now, as Mobutu Sese Seko, he
wears what he has made, by his example, the Zairois court costume. It is a
stylish - bear in mind this was mid-Seventies Africa - version of the standard
two-piece suit. The jacket has high, wide lapels and is buttoned all the way
down; the sleeves can be long or short. A boldly patterned cravat replaces the
tie, which has more or - less been outlawed."

In establishing such a fashion-conscious form of court dress for the ruling and
official classes, Mobutu might well have been influenced by the designs of
Italian fashion house Brioni, which had already submitted an entry for a
competition to create a national costume for Libya, in 1974.

As the African safari gave way to the African civil war, the safari jacket
acquired its identity: as a pillar of the 1970s unisex wardrobe and a key
component of third world dictator chic. By the mid-1970s, Brioni was just one
brand creating all manner of long- and short-sleeved versions of the safari
jacket as quite formal "Classico-Ethnico" wear. Soon, the safari jacket was a
chameleon garment, adopted as everyday wear by characters as diverse as Roger
Moore's James Bond, and the Studio 54 set's couturier of choice, Halston.

The era of epic safaris on which lions and elephants were slaughtered with a
wantonness suggesting they were looked upon as vermin belongs to a past age, but
the hunter's garment of choice has remained a fashion classic, revivified over
the years by everyone from Turnbull & Asser to Ralph Lauren, and the
merchandising department of Land Rover.

INFORMATION

Abercrombie & Fitch, 199 Water Street, New York (+ 212-809 9000).
www.abercrombieandfitch.com

Holland & Holland, 31-33 Bruton Street, London W1 (020-7499 4411).

Land Rover Gear, in the UK: 01206-216900, www.thegearshop.co.uk; in the US:
1-888 GEAR 4WD.

www.landrovergear.com

Turnbull & Asser, in the UK; 71&72 Jermyn Street, London SW1 (020-7898 3000): in
the US: 42 East 57th Street, New York (+1 212-752 5700);
www.turnbullandasser.com

Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, in the UK: 137 New Bond Street,
London W1 (020-74931800); in the US: 855 Madison Avenue, New York (+1 212-988
3821).

LOAD-DATE: February 21, 2002

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 31, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 3

BP goes for Veba petrol stations deal OIL & GAS GROUP WILL ALSO CLINCH SALE OF
VEBA ASSETS TO PETRO-CANADA:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN, VIRGINIA MARSH and KEN WARN

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK AND IRELAND ; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 470 words

DATELINE: LONDON, TORONTO and SYDNEY

BP, the oil major, yesterday announced it would carry through its deal with Eon
to buy Veba petrol stations in Germany, while at the same time clinching a
Dollars 2bn (Pounds 1.3bn) sale of Veba assets to Petro-Canada.

The deal with Eon, the German utility, had been thrown into some doubt by German
competition regulators' recent refusal to allow Eon to take BP's quarter share
in Ruhrgas as part payment.

But BP said yesterday it would instead pay Dollars 2.1bn in cash. However, it
added that if the German government overruled its own regulators' ban BP would
be ready to sell its Ruhrgas stake to Eon for the same price.

Veba's upstream assets are situated mainly in the North Sea, Libya and
Venezuela.

They will give Petro-Canada, the former government-owned integrated oil company,
an international dimension and increase its proven reserves by 70 per cent to
more than 1.4bn barrels of oil equivalent.

"We seized a rare opportunity to seize a business of superb quality," said Ron
Brenneman, Petro-Canada's chief executive.

Veba's upstream operations, largely run from London though headquartered in
Germany, produce 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day. Petro-Canada hopes to
double this output over the next five years.

Its deal may signal a more aggressive attitude by Canada's remaining energy
companies, many of whom have recently fallen to US buyers.

BP will get Dollars 1.65bn of the Veba asset proceeds, which will defray much of
the cost of the Dollars 2.48bn it will pay Eon to gain 51 per cent of Eon's Veba
subsidiary tomorrow. It will pay Dollars 2.4bn for the remaining 49 per cent in
April. But some of that price will be defrayed by proceeds from some petrol
station and petrochemical disposals BP has been forced to make by competition
regulators.

These disposals will still leave BP with a 22.5 per cent share of the German
petrol retailing market. This will be just ahead of the 19 per cent share gained
recently by Shell, its rival oil leader, as the result of its own purchase of
DEA petrol stations from RWE, another big German utility.

The unsuccessful underbidders for the Veba upstream assets were Woodside
Petroleum of Australia and Enterprise Oil of the UK. Both wanted to increase
their size, but success for either could have proved controversial.

Woodside might have re-incurred the wrath of Royal Dutch/Shell, a 34 per cent
owner of the Australian company. Having failed to get Woodside to stick to its
own region, Shell last year launched a bid for Woodside, a move that was blocked
by the Australian government.

After rejecting a hostile takeover approach from Eni of Italy last year,
Enterprise is fighting to stay independent. Sam Laidlaw, Enterprise's new chief
executive, will next week outline a strategy in which he may have hoped a Veba
deal would figure prominently.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 30, 2002 Wednesday
USA Edition 2

Petro-Canada expands overseas

BYLINE: By KEN WARN

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 371 words

DATELINE: TORONTO

Petro-Canada, the Canadian former state-owned integrated oil company, has agreed
to buy the international operations of Veba Oil & Gas for CDollars 3.2bn
(USDollars 2bn) in an ambitious push outside its mature domestic oil patch.

The deal will lift Petro-Canada's total proven reserves by 70 per cent to more
than 1.4bn barrels of oil equivalent.

The effective seller is BP, which is buying German-based Veba but disposing of
the company's upstream assets.

The deal will give Petro-Canada production and exploration assets concentrated
in three areas: the North Sea; North Africa; and northern Latin America.

The takeover will be accretive to earnings and cash flow and is expected to more
than double production over the next five years, Petro- Canada said.

"We seized a rare opportunity to acquire a business of superb quality," said Ron
Brenneman, Petro-Canada chief executive.

"For some time now we have been evaluating international prospects to complement
and build on our strong position in every major oil and gas play in Canada," he
added.

Petro-Canada's purchase of Veba comes days after PanCanadian Energy and Alberta
Energy agreed to merge, signalling a heightened pace of activity within the
Canadian oil patch.

The all-cash deal will be financed by a credit underwritten by the Royal Bank of
Canada and Deutsche Bank, while cash flow from the acquisition would help fund
further Canadian and international growth and pay down debt, the company said.

The acquisition comes just days after Petro-Canada reported record profits of
CDollars 904m for fiscal 2001 and signalled its intention to continue its
overseas expansion. The government of Canada retains a passively held 18 per
cent stake in Petro-Canada, which it has said it intends to sell in the long
term.

Veba's North Sea assets include interests in the Guillemot and Scott fields in
the UK, and in the Hanze field in the Netherlands.

In North Africa it has production and development acreage in Libya, where
Petro-Canada also acquired holdings last year, and production in Syria and
Egypt.

Veba also has an interest in the Cerro Negro integrated heavy oil development in
Venezuela and an interest in an offshore natural gas development in Trinidad.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 28, 2002 Monday
London Edition 1

Karachalios joins Greek oil refiner PEOPLE

BYLINE: By KERIN HOPE and LISA WOOD - EDITOR

SECTION: PEOPLE ; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 323 words

Athamassios Karachalios has rejoined Hellenic Petroleum, the Greek
state-controlled oil refining group, as managing director almost a year after he
resigned as chief executive of Hellenic's subsidiary in Macedonia.

Karachalios, 49, takes over from Eleftherios Tzelles, who oversaw the group's
partial privatisation and launched its expansion into the Balkan region.
Tzelles, who served as chairman and managing director, steps down after a
dispute with the development ministry over the selection of a strategic investor
for Hellenic. The binding offers are due next month for a 23 per cent stake in
Hellenic. Russia's Lukoil, in partnership with Greece's Latsis Group, OMV of
Austria and Yukos of Russia are the shortlisted bidders. The strategic investor
would also have a role in managing the next stages in Hellenic's regional
expansion.

Karachalios, a chemical engineer, started his career at Hellenic, working on the
modernisation of its oil refinery outside Athens in the 1980s.

He moved to Meton-Etap, a private Greek contractor that carried out construction
projects in the Middle East, including Libya.

After economic sanctions were imposed against Col Muammer Gadaffi's regime, and
payments to foreign contractors were frozen, Karachalios negotiated the
settlement of debt owed to Meton in shipments of crude oil.

He rejoined Hellenic to spearhead its expansion into the Balkans following the
group's listing on the Athens Stock Exchange. After the acquisition of Okta, the
Macedonian oil refinery, he moved to Skopje as chief executive with a brief to
oversee its modernisation. He also negotiated a project under which Meton joined
forces with Hellenic to build a pipeline to carry crude oil from northern Greece
to the refinery in Skopje, due to be completed this year.

Karachalios will work closely with George Moraitis, a former agriculture
minister who was appointed Hellenic's chairman earlier this month. Kerin Hope

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 26, 2002 Saturday
London Edition 1

Irrational exuberance in the directors' box Simon Kuper. On the Game. Investing
in a sports club is an emotional act in both the US as Europe. The difference is
that in Europe owners lose money, while in the US, everybody else pays

BYLINE: By SIMON KUPER

SECTION: BACK PAGE - WEEKEND FT ; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 912 words

As an extremely lowly reporter on this newspaper, I used to write about UK
football clubs floating on the stock market. That was six years ago andfootball
was perceived for the first time to be big business.

This was a strictly theoretical discovery, like something in particle physics,
because almost all football clubs lost money. But their new owners talked
vaguely of a future in which millions of fans swathed in club gear would watch
their team on pay-per-view television.

"Look at America," owners would conclude vaguely. This impressed me. US sports
clubs were well known to be big and profitable companies, almost like Goldman
Sachs or General Electric. Six years on, British football clubs still make
losses. If you bought shares in some of the clubs I wrote about - Chelsea,
Newcastle or Aston Villa - you would now have lost about three-quarters of your
money.

Nor are football clubs any better run than before. Recently I asked for an
interview with the president of a club listed on the stock market. I was told to
send a fax. The club said it had not got the fax. I sent three to different
officials. None apparently arrived. A month later I was finally allowed to make
the request by e-mail. This is a fairly typical experience of dealing with a
British club.

Anyone who still believed in investing in football must have been perturbed
earlier this month when Al-Saadi Gadaffi did just that. The son of the Libyan
leader bought 5 per cent of Juventus, the recently floated Italian club.

Al-Saadi does not even pretend to be a rational economic actor. A fan of
Juventus, who has reportedly played for the Libyan national team, he said: "This
cannot be considered a financial deal. Libya believes in sport and in its youth
and Juventus will help us develop the enormous potential of our football."

If only all sports investors were so honest. If they said: "I want to waste
money buying a piece of a sports club. It makes me feel good," that would be
fair enough. Alternatively, as I argued last week, they could buy the club in a
bid to become president of a country. But instead they dress up their
"investment" as a brilliant financial strategy.

Investing in a sports club is folly because sport is ruled by emotion. People
are so attached to a club that they bid up its price beyond rational levels.
Then, after someone has overpaid for the club, fans and the press force him to
overspend to buy or keep players. The Texas Rangers baseball club recently
handed shortstop Alex Rodriguez a 10-year contract worth Dollars 25m annually,
or about a fifth of current Rangers' revenues. This will not prove a rational
investment.

Yet investing in US sport is still said to be a better idea than in Europe. It
is true that presumably rational companies such as Disney and AOL Time Warner
own American sports franchises. Many clubs make money - the Chicago Bulls
basketball club had operating profits of Dollars 51m last year - and their
owners make even more.

It has actually proved almost impossible to sell a US sports franchise for less
than you paid for it. Only the CBS television network has managed this trick,
buying the New York Yankees for Dollars 14m in 1964 and selling them nine years
later for Dollars 10m. Otherwise, prices have surged. The Bulls sold for Dollars
1.25m in 1966, for Dollars 16.4m in 1985, and are now valued at about Dollars
330m. Such rises are almost normal in American sport.

And yet they are irrational. Profit figures do not remotely justify these
prices. Last year, the average National Basketball Association franchise turned
an operating profit of just Dollars 5m, while Major League Baseball clubs
claimed to have lost Dollars 519m in all. This figure may be exaggerated -
baseball was pleading poverty to justify closing two clubs - but there is no way
the sport simply invented Dollars 500m in losses.

Many US sports clubs are horrible companies. Paying ever more to buy them is
what is known as a bubble, or a gift to one's local community. When Texas
entrepreneur Robert McNair spent Dollars 700m on an American football team for
Houston in 1999, it was described as "probably the single largest charitable
contribution anyone has ever made".

US clubs would be even worse off but for the taxpayer. This generous being spent
about Dollars 1bn a year throughout the 1990s on building stadiums for sports
franchises. No self-respecting American club pays for its own ground. Instead,
it locates itself in whichever city gives it a stadium on the most generous
terms.

Trying to justify this taxpayers' subsidy, some interested party invariably
produces a report estimating the vast economic benefit a stadium will bring the
region. This benefit does not exist. When a city gets a stadium, local people
spend money there. But they spend commensurately less in local shopping malls,
cinemas and the like.

In other words, Dollars 1bn a year is transferred almost directly from the
taxpayer to multi-millionaire athletes and billionaire owners. This subsidy
makes owning a US sports club look a relatively good deal, particularly as there
is always some greater fool, or vainer billionaire, eager to buy the club for
yet more money.

For media companies, buying a sports franchise may just make sense, since they
are, in effect, purchasing "content". Otherwise, investing in a sports club is
as irrational in the US as in Europe. There is one difference: in Europe the
money is lost by owners, in the US, everybody else pays.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 24, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 1

Lockerbie bomber appeal opens

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 33 words

Lockerbie bomber appeal opens

Lawyers for the Libyan jailed for the Lockerbie bombing claimed they had
"significant" new evidence as they launched an appeal. Page 2; Gadaffi turns
westward, Page 10

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 24, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 1

Gadaffi turns westward in search of a fresh image: September 11 gave Libya a
chance to show it was now on the same side as the anti-terrorism campaign,
writes Roula Khalaf

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 715 words

As part of Libya's contrib-ution to the global anti-terrorism campaign, a
justice ministry website has posted the names and photographs of "wanted"
exiles. The screen flashes the Dollars 1m (Pounds 600,000) reward Tripoli is
willing to pay for information on them.

"Libjust.com" appears to be an attempt to capitalise on the post-September 11
mood and underline that Libya, most often forced to defend itself against
terrorism charges, is now on the side of those fighting extremism. But for Ashur
al-Shamis, one of the London-based dissidents sought by the Libyans, the wanted
list sets a dangerous precedent.

"I've been in opposition to the regime since 1979 and they've never described me
as a terrorist - until last month. Now I feel fully exposed to attacks," he
says.

Mr al-Shamis runs an anti-regime electronic newsletter that has outraged
officials in Tripoli. He admits that he once held sympathetic views about the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an organisation that targeted Libyan security
forces in the 1990s but was crushed by the regime. The US says the group is
linked to Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

But Libyan claims that Mr al-Shamis has ties to the Islamist organisation and
that he has been involved in financing violence do not appear to be taken
seriously by the UK government. Western officials say there is no evidence he
has been involved in terrorism.

"He's an Islamist and he's in opposition so the Libyans are upset by him," says
a western official. "They've decided they don't like him and they're using the
current security environment to have a go at him."

The September 11 tragedy has offered Libya a rare opportunity to highlight that
it has turned the page on its dark past. Colonel Muammer Gadaffi rushed to
condemn the attacks on the US and to offer Libyan assistance.

His claim that Libya has itself been the target of terrorism was bolstered by
the inclusion of the Islamic Fighting Group on the US list of banned
organisations, though little remains of the group.

Since September Tripoli has handed over to the US a list of people it says have
helped Mr bin Laden. Libya also claimed to have information about the Taliban,
with whom it has tried to negotiate in the past for the handover of Libyans who
have fought in Afghanistan.

Western officials say that, while the information was welcomed, it did not prove
of great use. "The helpfulness comes in the fact that the Libyans are not
opposed to the global campaign and to the war on Afghanistan," says an official.
Libya is hoping that joining the anti-terrorism war may accelerate its
rehabilitation and achieve the great prize sought by Col Gadaffi: a resumption
of diplomatic ties with the US.

Washington appears to recognise the improvement in Libyan behaviour as Col
Gadaffi turns his attention to developing a new image as a mediator in African
conflicts. Libya's inclusion on the US State Department list of states
sponsoring terrorism is open to review. But diplomats say a rapprochement
requires first a resolution of outstanding demands on the Lockerbie case.

Last year a court found Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent,
guilty of the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie. The Libyan's appeal began yesterday. If the verdict is confirmed,
Libya must accept responsibility for the act and pay compensation to families of
victims.

In meetings between US, British and Libyan officials American officials have
been seeking to persuade Tripoli to agree a compensation package before the end
of the appeal process, arguing that the outcome will not be favourable to the
Libyans.

People close to the discussions say that following September 11 Col Gadaffi may
be more amenable to an early resolution of Lockerbie and that he is considering
a deal. They also warn, however, that revolutionary zealots in Tripoli could
undermine the leader's efforts by actions such as the persecution of exiled
opponents.

"Gadaffi knows that September 11 presents an opportunity to move ahead on
relations with the US," says an expert on Libya. "But he should also know that
after September 11 Libya won't get a second chance if anyone there misbehaves."
www.ft.com/libya For regional reports, www.ft.com/mideastafrica

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 23, 2002 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Lockerbie appeal case unlikely to affect Libya's rehabilitation: The political
process may have outstripped legal proceedings in the 13-year-old affair, write
Ian Bickerton and Jean Eaglesham

BYLINE: By IAN BICKERTON and JEAN EAGLESHAM

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 493 words

The appeal of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing starts today, amid
indications that the political process surrounding the 13- year-old case may
have outstripped the legal one.

The gradual rehabilitation of Libya from its pariah, terrorist status appears
likely to continue, even if Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi wins his
appeal.

The UK, US and Libya are in negotiations about lifting the US and United Nations
sanctions imposed on Libya after the Lockerbie bombing. The latest talks were
held in London earlier this month and further meetings are scheduled.

The US and UN have said that the sanctions will remain until Libya accepts
responsibility for the 1988 bombing and agrees to pay compensation to the
families of the 270 people killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded above the
Scottish town.

Success for Mr al-Megrahi - who was jailed for life a year ago by Scottish
judges sitting at a special court in Zeist, in the Netherlands - would be
embarrassing for the US and the UK.

It would mean no one had been convicted for a crime long laid at Libya's door by
the west.

The legal grounds for the appeal - likely to last up to six weeks - have not
been disclosed, causing speculation about the defence team's strategy.

Mr al-Megrahi has always maintained his innocence, saying he was an airline
official and not - as the prosecution claimed - a Libyan intelligence officer.
His co-defendant at the original trial, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was found not
guilty by the judges.

Britain and the US insist that the appeal outcome will not affect their stance
on the sanctions.

The US State Department said there were "no shortcuts" around the UN resolutions
for Libya - a position which has hardened significantly since the September 11
attacks.

Libya remains on the State Department's list of states sponsoring terrorism, and
the Bush administration is determined to establish that Libya has ceased to
support international terrorists before agreeing to relax any sanctions.

The appeal hearing is likely to intensify the media spotlight on the way
terrorist attacks are investigated. The relatives of the Lockerbie victims
contrast the enthusiasm with which the international community has pursued the
perpetrators of the Lockerbie and September 11 atrocities.

"There has been no investigation into who were behind this, whereas with Osama
bin Laden the opposite seems to be happening," said Dr Jim Swire, of the UK
support group for the victims' relatives.

He said he would press for an independent, public inquiry, regardless of the
outcome of the appeal.

However, politicians may prefer to draw a line under the case. The Foreign
Office said it would be "inappropriate to reach a view on an inquiry at this
stage".

The relatives are also angered by their long wait for compensation, which
contrasts with the funds set up in the immediate aftermath of September 11.
Additional reporting by Richard Wolffe in Washington www.ft.com/lockerbie

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 21, 2002 Monday
London Edition 1

Sudan's slow self-destruction: Unless the new world order sits up and takes
notice, Africa's largest state is in danger of becoming another Afghanistan
QUENTIN PEEL

BYLINE: By QUENTIN PEEL

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 1063 words

El Obeid must rank as one of the more desolate places on earth. It is a landing
strip in the arid scrub of central Sudan, with a distant view of the Nuba
mountains, slap in the middle of the largest country in Africa.

Airport buildings have been manufactured out of cargo containers. A dust storm
blows up every time an aircraft lands. It is not a tourist destination, even for
masochists.

There is a pot-bellied Russian-made Antonov air freighter at the northern end of
the strip, being loaded with food supplies from the World Food Programme. The
sacks are going to be dropped to tribespeople whose crops have failed for the
umpteenth year in succession, because of civil war and drought.

There is another Antonov parked off the runway a few hundred yards away, being
discreetly serviced by a yellow truck. But this one is being loaded with bombs
for the Sudan army. They will be dropped just like the food supplies - rolled
out of the back cargo doors a few hundred feet off the ground - and in much the
same areas, but with very different intent.

That tale of two Antonovs sums up the situation in Sudan, which has been torn
apart by civil war on-and-off for almost five decades, the last 19 years without
a break. At least 2m people have died as a result, and another 4m are refugees
inside their own country - internally displaced people, in the jargon of the aid
world.

Sudan is not exactly a failed state, but it is in a desperate plight. It could
easily be another Afghanistan if the outside world does not start paying serious
attention. All the ingredients are there, except for Osama bin Laden, who was
forced to leave in 1996.

It has a government, part military dictatorship and part Islamic fundamentalist,
which controls Khartoum, plus the most fertile land along the Nile, and the new
oil-fields on the borders of the rebellious south.

It has a judiciary, scarcely independent, and an education system attended by
500,000 of the 1m children born each year in the north. Only 90,000 are likely
to finish school. But outside the central region, the writ of the government
scarcely runs and it seems to have ceased to care.

In the south, the main battle zone, the Sudan People's Liberation Army controls
an area as big as neighbouring Kenya and Uganda put together - or at least they
deny the government forces control. But that war is complicated by at least 40
more sub-conflicts - local tribal wars over cattle-grazing and water rights that
the government has simply given up trying to police. Indeed, Khartoum is
suspected of positively encouraging the chaos.

"This conflict is one of the most complicated in Africa, if not in the world,"
said one long-serving international aid worker in Khartoum. "There is a constant
import of arms, and people turn to banditry to acquire cattle and wealth. The
government spends its money on the security forces, to keep itself in power.
They supply certain tribes with arms, to divide and rule. That is part of it.
The rest is incompetence, plus neglect."

It is not that the government has a monopoly on nastiness, although it is not
very nice. "It is a very divided coalition," says the head of another aid
agency. "It is not so much a battle between Islamists and liberals but between
the people who think this should be an Islamic country and those who believe
they have to be part of the modern world.

"Peace will only happen if the people who want to be part of the modern world,
and want to mend fences with America and Europe, can come out on top."

That is still a very big If. But since September 11, there have been at least
signs that both America and Europe want to re-engage and modernisers in the
Sudan regime are keen to talk. One big question is whether they can deliver. The
other is whether they can overcome decades of bitterness and broken promises to
persuade the SPLA leader John Garang to declare a ceasefire and talk peace.

"I don't see any serious negotiation," says the aid agency director (people do
not like to be quoted by name in a country run by the security services). "I
don't think the SPLA is much better. I don't think there are any good guys."

It is a classic situation where the war has gone on so long that the rest of the
world has turned its collective back - just as it did in Afghanistan.

"There is a terrible record of mistrust, and nobody in the international
community gives a damn," says Clare Short, the UK development minister, who has
just returned from Khartoum.

One hope is that sheer exhaustion will bring both sides to the table. But while
the government insists on a ceasefire without preconditions, Mr Garang wants
guarantees on a secular constitution before he will stop the shooting. Only
outside pressure on both sides is likely to bring them to the table.

The main change is that America has ceased to treat the Sudanese government as a
total pariah. Washington is still sympathetic to the southern rebels, who enjoy
fervent support from US Christian conservatives. But John Danforth, a former
senator, has now held two rounds of talks with the government, trying to find
ways of rebuilding trust.

Aid workers, church leaders and diplomats all believe there is a glimmer of hope
for peace. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group is about to produce a
study* setting out how it could be done.

The ICG argues for all existing peace initiatives - by Sudan's African
neighbours, by Egypt and Libya, by America and the European Union - to be
combined, or replaced by a single one.

The peace process must be built around agreement on self-determination for the
south: on federation or secession. The status of Khartoum, who owns the oil, and
how to unite or divide the armed forces, will all be difficult questions to
resolve. But the detail is secondary.

The overriding lesson is clear. International engagement is essential to prevent
divided countries becoming failed states, and breeding grounds for terrorism. Mr
Danforth is threatening to quit if he cannot make progress in two months. That
would be tragic. America cannot afford to turn its back, any more than Europe
can do so. Peace-making and nation-building are essential tasks of the new world
order, even if they are uncomfortable and often unrewarding.

* God, Oil and Country. Changing the Logic of War in Sudan, International Crisis
Group Press, Brussels quentin.peel@ft.com www.ft.com/terror

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 14, 2002 Monday
London Edition 1

WTO crunch tax decision

BYLINE: By SIMON GREAVES and HAL WEITZMAN

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK ; Pg. 42

LENGTH: 1121 words

The World Trade Organisation's appellate body rules finally in the long-running
dispute between the US and the European Union over a corprate tax law that the
EU says gives American exporters illegal subsidies worth Dollars 4bn a year.
After winning three previous WTO cases on the issue, Brussels is confident of
victory. If it loses, the US will have to change its laws to end the tax break.
If Brussels wins, it will ask a WTO panel to authorise sanctions on US exports.
The US could not block such a request under WTO rules, but is likely to
retaliate with an attack on EU value-added tax systems.

Turkish visit

Bulent Ecevit, the Turkish prime minister, leads a delegation to Washington (to
January 18). Turkey's role in the security force for Afghanistan is likely to be
on the agenda. Turkey, the only Muslim member of Nato and which has the second
largest standing army in the alliance, is to take over the leadership of
Afghanistan's international security force from Britain.

Nuclear arms cuts

Russian and American weapons experts start consultations on nuclear arms cuts
(to January 18).

TUESDAY 15

Zimbabwe crisis talks

Southern African leaders meet in Blantyre, Malawi, to discuss the deepening
crisis in Zimbabwe (to January 18).

Sanctions scrutinised

Benon Sevan, executive director of the United Nations oil-for-food programme for
Iraq, arrives in Baghdad. He will review the controversial deal struck in 1996
whereby Iraq can use revenue from the sale of oil to buy essential supplies.
Sevan will meet Tun Myat, UN humanitarian co-ordinator, and Iraqi officials.

Ship shape to come

World of Residensea, a 40,000-ton ship, is being launched in Oslo. It is divided
into 110 luxury flats and 88 guest suites that are sold as freehold holiday
homes.

Stylish setting

Fashion Week for the autumn/winter season opens in Hong Kong (to January 18).
About 780 exhibitors from 20 countries are expected to attend.

Presidential poll

Members of the European parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, elect a new president
for the parliament to succeed Nicole Fontaine.

Talking turtle

A European symposium on turtles and tortoises is being held (to January 20) in
Vienna, Austria. It will focus on conservation and breeding.

WEDNESDAY 16

Court ruling

Egypt's highest appeals court is to issue a decision on whether Saadeddin
Ibrahim, the jailed US-Egyptian rights activist, should be sent for retrial.

Cypriot negotiations

President Glafcos Clerides and Rauf Denktash, leaders of the Greek and Turkish
Cypriot communities, start a fresh round of UN-sponsored negotiations aimed at
reuniting the island. The aim is for a federated Cyprus to be eligible to join
the European Union in 2004 in the first round of enlargement. The talks are
being held in Nicosia in the buffer zone on the UN-patrolled Green Line that has
divided the island since 1974.

Exchange trip

Russian president Vladimir Putin visits Poland (to January 17). He returns a
visit made by Leszek Miller, the Polish premier, to Moscow in December.

THURSDAY 17

Arab summit

Foreign ministers from the Arab Maghreb Union countries - Algeria, Libya,
Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia - are scheduled to meet in Algiers (to January
18). The AMU, which was recently revived, aims for the free movement of goods
and people and a revision of tariffs.

Gambian elections

Gambia holds elections to the National Assembly. Forty-five of the assembly's 49
seats are elected by popular vote, with the remainder chosen by the president. A
two-member delegation from the Commonwealth is due to be present to monitor the
elections.

Financial forum

The International Financial Journalists' Group stages a debate in Frankfurt.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister and finance minister of Luxembourg, will
take part in a discussion on the euro, while Gunter Verheugen, the European
Union enlargement commissioner, discusses EU enlargement. The closing speech
will be by Ernst Welteke, the German Bundesbank president.

Cultural combination

Evangelos Venizelos, Greek culture minister, and Rick van der Ploeg, Dutch
deputy culture minister, open an exhibition in Athens of recent acquisitions by
the Van Abbemuseum of contemporary art at Einhoven in the Netherlands, which has
been closed for rebuilding. The exhibit is part of Greece's cultural Olympiad -
a three-year series of arts events being staged ahead of and during the 2004
Olympic Games in Athens.

King to Beijing

King Abdullah, the 39-year-old who assumed the throne of Jordan three years ago,
visits China (to January 21).

FRIDAY 18

Diplomatic mission

Anthony Zinni, the US's special envoy to the Middle East, is expected to return
to the region to review progress towards peace between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority.

Japanese party time

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic party holds a party convention in Tokyo. On
January 8 the party unveiled its action plan for 2002, which includes
unequivocal support for the structural reforms outlined by Junichiro Koizumi,
the prime minister and party leader.

Busking all over the world

The eighth annual World Buskers Festival begins at Christchurch Polytechnic, New
Zealand (to January 28). The festival claims to be the largest street performers
event in Australasia and features theatre, music, comic and circus-style acts
from around the world.

SATURDAY 19

Classic couture

The annual Paris haute-couture shows for spring-summer fashion take place

(to January 23). Designers showing their work have been nominated and elected by
their peers.

Mali matches

The African Cup of Nations, the biennial football competition, kicks off (until
February 10). Mali is hosting the 16-nation tournament.

SUNDAY 20

Time up for Farc zone

A demilitarised zone under the control of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (Farc) is due to expire. The government has announced the end of its
peace process with the country's largest leftwing guerrilla group and hinted
that it will reoccupy the rebel-controlled zone that has existed since peace
talks began in 1998. The decision appears to mark the end of President Andres
Pastrana's attempts to reach a negotiated end to almost 38 years of war with
Farc, the western hemisphere's largest insurgent army.

Constitutional change

Congo holds a referendum on changes to the constitution. The new constitution
would provide for a president elected for a seven-year term. A two-chamber
parliament is also proposed. Ten opposition parties are boycotting the
referendum. They claim that the national electoral commission is made up almost
entirely of allies of President Sassou-Nguesso. If the constitution is approved,
a two-stage presidential election will be held on March 10. Compiled by Simon
Greaves and Hal Weitzman Fax +44 20 7873 3196

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 11, 2002 Friday
London Edition 1

Libya's lady OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER ; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 222 words

Libya's lady

There are some novel tactics behind the Libyan investment in Juventus, the
revered "Old Lady" of Italian football. This week it was revealed that the
Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company had bought a 5 per cent stake in the
recently floated club, worth Euros 23m.

Yesterday, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son, al-Saadi, went a step further,
telling Gazzetta dello Sport that Lafico aimed to own 20 per cent of the club
within a few years. There's a history of sorts between the two sides.

The Turin-based club is controlled by the Ifi holding company of the Agnelli
clan, owners of Fiat. Lafico bought a minority stake in a struggling Fiat in
1977 and sold out in 1986.

"Juventus need fresh capital and we believe we are making another great
investment," said lifelong Juventus fan al-Saadi, 28.

The market seems unexcited by the idiosyncratic investor and the shares
yesterday remained below the club's Euros 3.70 offer price.

That may have something to do with al-Saadi's further comments: "This cannot be
considered a financial deal. Libya believes in sport and in its youth and
Juventus will help us develop the enormous potential of our football."

No doubt, too, that the football crazy al-Saadi, who's played striker for his
national team, is dreaming of linking up with Juventus hitman Alessandro del
Piero.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 10, 2002 Thursday
London Edition 1

Chief of the Arab League to visit Iraq

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: WORLD NEWS ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 311 words

DATELINE: CAIRO

The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, under pressure from the US and still not
fully rehabilitated in the Arab world, is due to receive a morale-boosting visit
this month from Amr Moussa, the outspoken secretary-general of the Arab League.

The league confirmed yesterday that Mr Moussa would visit Baghdad in January,
but no date had yet been set. Iraqi newspapers reported yesterday that a
three-day trip was scheduled for January 18.

Mr Moussa is more popular in Baghdad than his predecessor, Esmat Abdel Magid,
whom the Iraqi regime perceived as favouring Kuwait after the Gulf war. But Mr
Abdel Magid did visit Baghdad after military strikes carried out by the US and
Britain in 1998.

This will be Mr Moussa's first visit to Baghdad since he became
secretary-general last year. It comes at a time of rising concern in Iraq that
Mr Saddam's regime will be the next target in the US anti-terrorism campaign. It
will be used in Baghdad to underline Arab opposition to the targeting of Iraq by
the US. Several Arab states have expressed dismay at US hints of possible
action.

But the trip will probably be pegged to preparations for an Arab summit
scheduled to be held in Beirut in late March. Mr Moussa left Cairo yesterday for
a tour of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Lebanon and Libya.

The Arab world, keen to put on a show of unity in the face of the conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians, is witnessing an embarrassing spat over the
summit between Libya and Lebanon.

Lebanese Shia leaders, including Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese
parliament, have been airing old accusations that Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan
leader, was responsible for the death or disappearance in 1978 of Imam Moussa
Sadr, a charismatic Shia spiritual leader.

Mr Gadaffi denies the charge and in turn accuses Mr Berri of responsibility for
the Imam's disappearance.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 9, 2002 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Libya buys Juventus stake

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 32 words

The Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company, a former partner of Fiat, has bought
a 5.31 per cent stake in the football club Juventus, which is controlled by the
Fiat-owning Agnelli family.

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January 9, 2002 Wednesday
London Edition 2

Libyans to take Juventus stake NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By THOROLD BARKER

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE INTERNATIONAL ; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 149 words

DATELINE: MILAN

The Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (Lafico), yesterday emerged as the
first new investor to take a significant stake in Juventus, the Italian football
club, since its flotation in December.

Lafico, Libya's foreign investment agency, has taken a 5.3 per cent stake in the
25-times Italian league champions, worth nearly Euros 23m (Dollars 20.5m) at
yesterday's closing price.

Juventus said "(the club) views the opening of the shareholding system to such
an important institutional investor, as Lafico is, as a confirmation of the
appeal exercised by the company and its entertainment projects."

Juventus was the third big Italian club to float, joining Lazio and Roma on the
Milan stock exchange. It listed 37 per cent of its equity at Euros 3.7 a share
last month valuing the company at more than Euros 440m. The shares fell 1 per
cent to Euros 3.58 yesterday. Thorold Barker, Milan

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 5, 2002 Saturday
London Edition 1

Uneasy peacemakers: Ian McBride on a tortuous and occasionally farcical process

BYLINE: By IAN MCBRIDE

SECTION: BOOKS ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 1051 words

ENDGAME IN IRELAND by Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick

In April 1993, GerryAdams was spotted entering John Hume's home in London-derry.
We have come such a long way since the days when Sinn Fein were pariahs
everywhere outside Libya that it is sometimes hard to recapture the outrage
provoked by the revelation that the SDLP leader was supping with the devil. As
we now know, the Hume-Adams dialogue was just one thread in a web of
subterranean channels between the politicians and the gunmen.

John Major famously told the Commons it would turn his stomach to talk to
terrorists, but, later in the same year, Major admitted he had sanctioned
contacts between MI5 and Martin McGuiness. In Dublin, Albert Reynolds and his
team were said to be absolutely furious. But the taoiseach, unknown to the
British, was pursuing his own underworld connections with northern republicans,
and had established yet another secret line of contact to loyalist
paramilitaries. By the time the Downing Street Declaration was released in
December, almost everyone was talking to almost everyone behind everyone else's
back. The only exception was the Unionist party, whose resolutely low-profile
leader, Jim Molyneaux, apparently had no inkling the Irish political landscape
was about to be irrevocably transformed.

In reconstructing the tortuous and occasionally farcical story of the peace
process, Mallie and McKittrick had unprecedented access to the key players, from
Bill Clinton to Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair. Endgame in Ireland is the best book on
the subject since, well, since their last one, The Fight for Peace, on which it
draws extensively. What comes through again and again is the extraordinarily
accident-prone, close-run nature of the whole business.

The 1981 hunger strike, which propelled republicans into politics, was a
prisoner initiative, launched against the wishes of the IRA leadership. The
decision to run Bobby Sands as a parliamentary candidate, which sacrificed the
sacred cow of abstentionism, was a risky publicity stunt. Among the many
first-hand accounts, Danny Morrison explains how his famous slogan, "the ballot
box in one hand and the Armalite in the other", was an off-the-cuff remark
prompting fellow republicans to say: "Oh my God, what have you done now?" Bill
Clinton tells how he was bounced into announcing a visa for Gerry Adams at an
Irish-American meeting. Clinton reflected: "I'm not sure at the time I
understood all the ramifications of what I had said."

While 70 interviews (carried out for the Brook Lapping television series) add to
an extraordinarily vivid narrative, the authors diplomatically skirt the central
question of who is getting shafted by whom.

It would be a mistake to assume positions have mellowed because Protestants and
Catholics are slowly overcoming centuries of mistrust. At the high political
level there have indeed been moments of civility between bitter enemies, modest
but nonetheless significant. One concerns the amiable Unionist, Dermot Nesbitt,
standing at a urinal during the first all-party talks at Stormont. "I felt a
hand on my shoulder, and realised it was Gerry Adams who was inquiring about my
well-being. Lost for words and for want of something better to say I said, 'I
didn't realise you were so big.'"

On the ground, however, there was every sign that sectarian antagonisms were
renewing themselves as continued ethnic cleansing and the annual Drumcree
confrontations demonstrated. The main impetus came instead from outside Northern
Ireland: from the London/Dublin partnership that emerged from the Anglo-

Irish Agreement of 1985, and from Washington. It is no surprise that
decommissioning finally began in response to US pressure following the
embarrassing arrest of IRA veterans in Columbia.

Once embarked upon, the move towards a political strategy had its own momentum,
for the ballot box and the Armalite could not, after all, go hand in hand. After
1987 the Provisionals were equipped with RPG-7 rocket launchers, SAM-7
surface-to-air missiles and a ton of Semtex explosive. Yet it proved impossible
to escalate the violence without "mistakes": 11 civilians killed by the
Enniskillen Remembrance Day bomb in 1987, two children at Warrington in 1993,
and nine

Protestants at the Shankill Road fish shop in the same year. Sinn Fein now
boasted the support of 40 per cent of northern Catholics, but they would never
overtake the SDLP without dropping much of their ideological baggage. And those
who think that the ceasefire is a con trick would do well to consider just how
many republican U-turns have taken place since 1993. Sinn Fein has achieved none
of the goals built into the original Hume-Adams proposals, no time-frame for
British withdrawal, no arrangements for joint authority over the North, no
commitment that the British government would "join the ranks of the persuaders"
in convincing Unionists their future lay in a united Ireland. Instead they seem
to be confirming the old nationalist pattern whereby the revolutionaries of one
generation become the pragmatists of the next.

Meanwhile, those with stomachs more delicate than John Major's are not having an
easy time. At present well-wishers to the peace process are prepared to connive
in the Orwellian fiction that Sinn Fein and the IRA are separate entities. We
must also accept a sanitised history of the republican movement, in which the
Provisionals were impelled into armed struggle as if their acts lay beyond
conscious reflection or choice. By ostentatiously dismantling security
watchtowers in County Armagh, the government pays lip service to the notion that
IRA decommissioning is part of a wider "demilitarisation": the implication is
that there is a moral equivalence between the violence of the IRA and the armed
force used by the state. It is this kind of constructive hypocrisy on which the
survival of the Good Friday Agreement depends.

The price to be paid, however, is that many difficult questions are never posed.
During the impasse over decommissioning Adams explained to Clinton that, if the
IRA was pressurised into giving up its arms, "it will look like everything they
did for 30 years was for nothing". As Sinn Fein transforms itself into the new
SDLP, it is hard not to recognise the desperately painful truth in these words.

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January 2, 2002 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Foreign Office feared fallout from Lonrho 'odium' PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE PAPERS
FOR 1971:

BYLINE: By LYDIA ADETUNJI

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 727 words

The Foreign Office feared that "odium" attracted by the relations of Lonrho, the
African mining conglomerate synonymous with the late "Tiny" Rowland, with
African heads of state would rub off on the government.

The extent of government unease with Lonrho's maverick business style is
revealed in a Foreign Office paper released yesterday under the Public Record
Office's 30-year rule.

The report - written the year before Edward Heath, the then prime minister,
described Lonrho as the "unacceptable face of capitalism" - said there "was
evidence that Lonrho had employed bribery in Africa in order to oil the wheels
of business", and had been secretive in a way that occasionally bordered on
"outright deceit".

Officials feared this would reflect badly on government because of the
impression Lonrho had created - helped by the social standing of some of its
directors - that it enjoyed the backing of Whitehall.

Of the Lonrho directors, Mr Rowland was "most open to the charge of sharp
practice", but "much of what Lonrho men told Whitehall officials had to be taken
with a pinch of salt".

Lonrho put strong pressure on the government to further its interests, with the
help of highly placed contacts and direct approaches to ministers.

One such instance was the "calculated campaign" by Mr Rowland to "stampede" the
Export Credits Guarantee Department into agreeing Pounds 20m credit for the
Sudan, while Duncan Sandys - the conservative MP and former minister, then a
director of Ashanti Goldfields, a Lonrho subsidiary - lobbied cabinet ministers.
Lonrho was trying to set up the deal in return for being appointed the Sudan's
purchasing agent in London.

The report also highlighted the extent to which Lonrho was willing to involve
itself in African politics. The Foreign Office suspected the company helped to
reverse a coup that briefly overthrew the Sudanese president by supplying an
aircraft to aid the effort against the insurgents and, possibly, by persuading
Libya's Colonel Gadaffi to force down an aircraft carrying the usurper.

Elsewhere in business in 1971, transcripts of a telephone conversation between
Edward Heath and Richard Nixon show the US president agreed that the
nationalisation of parts of the insolvent Rolls-Royce would make "the best out
of a bad situation".

The company had run into trouble with its RB211 engine, which it was contracted
to supply to Lockheed, the US aerospace group. Nationalisation was a U-turn from
a government that had undertaken not to support "lame ducks".

Mr Heath telephoned Nixon to reassure him that, although nationalisation was
inevitable, a new contract for the engines could be negotiated with Lockheed.
Nixon accepted the move, fearing Rolls-Royce's problems would otherwise affect
Lockheed's already precarious financial position.

The cabinet agreed that acquiring Rolls-Royce's aero engine and marine turbine
divisions was the "only tenable course of action" given the implications for
defence and employment should it be left to fail.

One ministerial memo suggests the government did not wish to publicise that it
always intended to refloat the undertaking on to the private sector.

It added that a limited liability company was preferable to a public corporation
as the latter option would "recognise the fact that this undertaking is, in
effect, being nationalised".

Rolls-Royce had given no hint of its difficulties to Lockheed, and when its
president was eventually told, after the nationalisation had been decided, it
was "a great shock to him".

A further test of the "lame duck" policy came in June when Upper Clyde
Shipbuilders, the Glasgow-based consortium, declared itself insolvent.

The cabinet decided it could not justify putting more capital into "the symbol
of an ailing enterprise, bedevilled by bad labour relations and poor management,
in whose future prospects there could be little confidence".

However, minutes show this stance gradually shifted.

By autumn a serious dispute with the unions was under way. John Davies, the
trade and industry secretary, told colleagues that if the yards were to be kept
at work while a solution was sought, the government would be forced to accept
onerous new financial commitments.

He warned of a possible 15,000 redundancies should Upper Clyde Shipbuilders
collapse. The government stepped in and baled out the company in February 1972.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 29, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

New currencies, slow growth and the return of hippy chic: What can the world
expect in 2002? FT writers identify the economic, political and social trends:

BYLINE: By GERARD BAKER, LIONEL BARBER, JAMES BLITZ, CLIVE COOKSON, ROBERT
COTTRELL, HOLLY FINN, CHRIS GILES, ROBERT GRAHAM, BRIAN GROOM, BEN HALL, MICHAEL
HOLMAN, ROULA KHALAF, RICHARD LAPPER, TOM O'SULLIVAN, JOHN PLENDER, JOHN
THORNHILL, MAX WILKINSON and MARTIN WOLF

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 2789 words

It has been a bad year for forecasters, writes Max Wilkinson. The slowing of the
global economy was underestimated by almost everyone. The stock markets have
disappointed both the optimists and the purveyors of extreme gloom and President
George W. Bush's response to a crisis was hardly foreseen by anyone.

Despite the difficulties, the FT's soothsayers did pretty well on December 30
2000 - although some of them were rather Delphic.

Martin Wolf painted two scenarios for the US economy but he made the right call:
"On balance the pessimists will be proved right."

John Plender correctly foresaw that the collapse of technology stocks would not
cause a "systemic earthquake", partly because the US Federal Reserve would "keep
equities afloat". But he also suggested fundamental reasons why shares in
general should weaken during the year, as they did.

Robert Thomson underestimated the ability of Mr Bush to push tax cuts through
Congress - at the start of his term. But the wrangling about a new package of
hand-outs after September 11 may prove our US editor right for unexpected
reasons.

Richard Lapper hedged his bets on whether last year's International Monetary
Fund rescue of Argentina would be enough. But (despite the double negative) he
is in the money for saying: "There is no certainty that Argentina will not be in
the same position a year from now."

Michael Holman wins the booby prize for a commendably clear and completely wrong
prediction that "Robert Mugabe will not last the year". The Zimbabwean president
seems to have remarkable staying power, so we have asked the question again. Guy
de Jonquie res is a runner-up for being over-pessimistic about the chances of
getting another trade round going. But that was before September 11.

Last, John Thornhill deserves an honourable mention for saying there might be a
war in Asia -although he failed to mention Afghanistan.

Where will the S&P 500 be this time next year?

The big monetary policy stimulus in the US in 2001 means that it will be
dangerous to be out of the equity market at the start of a year when America is
set to recover ahead of Europe and Japan. The penalty for holding cash is high.
But the recovery will be anaemic because the wealth effect from the earlier
stock market boom has to unwind. Spending by debt-burdened consumers and
companies will thus be slow to resume and corporate earnings growth will
disappoint.

The stock market rally also starts from a valuation base that is historically
high in price/earnings terms and in market capitalisation relative to gross
domestic product. So the rally is vulnerable to shocks, with the most obvious
threat, apart from weaker than expected earnings, being a destabilising plunge
in the yen and deflation in Asia. If shocks are avoided, the S&P 500 should end
the year higher than today - but by no great margin. John Plender

Will Putin and Bush remain friends?

A Russian leader has no real friends at home, only rivals, sycophants and
drinking mates. And when, like Vladimir Putin, you do not even drink very much,
the circle is more than usually limited.

Hence Mr Putin's enthusiasm for befriending other world leaders. They understand
his problems, even if they cannot always do much about them. Mr Putin's easy
relations with Mr Bush have been a pleasant surprise for both men.

Mr Putin understands the US cannot always do what Russia wants of it. What he
asks instead is a reliable flow of information about US intentions, so he can
plan for problems well in advance. And, so far, he is getting that from Mr Bush.

The friendship looks robust enough to survive even quite serious policy
reversals - as it has just survived the US withdrawal from the anti-ballistic
missile treaty. In 2002 it may have to survive disagreements over arms-reduction
strategies and over Nato enlargement. But even then, Mr Bush and Mr Putin will
still be smiling when they meet. It dignifies them both. And besides, they have
plenty of subordinates who can do the arguing in private if necessary. Robert
Cottrell

Who will be president of France?

The election in April looks so close as to be unpredictable. Though neither has
formally declared his candidacy, the polls put Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin
neck and neck.

If Mr Jospin fights a good campaign and homes in on his opponent's weaknesses -
his age, his poorly judged 1997 dissolution of parliament and corruption at
Paris city hall while mayor - he should win. But Mr Chirac is a formidable
fighter, loves pumping the flesh and has not been worn down by running the
country these past five years. Robert Graham

Can the Japanese economy get worse?

Of course. And it will. Deflation is accelerating. The result is high and rising
real interest rates. This year's recession has been relatively mild. Next year
it is likely to deepen.

Policy is in paralysis. The government wants the Bank of Japan to take charge;
the BoJ thinks that any further economic stimulus is the government's
responsibility. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's economic reforms have made
little progress. There is no solution in sight to the huge quantity of bad debt
held by private banks.

A deteriorating economy and rising international concern about Japan's plight
will push the yen lower, giving a welcome boost to Japanese exports but not
enough to turn the economy round.

Despite the gloom, most Japanese people are happy. They still have jobs; and
deflation increases the purchasing power of their money. Until the sense of
economic crisis becomes widespread, little of importance is likely to change.
Chris Giles

Which fashion houses will be fashionable?

Chloe, owned by Swiss luxury goods group Richemont, is frontrunner for the White
Hot prize. British designer Phoebe Philo spent four years in the shadow of
Stella McCartney (who has now moved on to her own-name label) before taking over
the reins of the French house. Her spring 2002 collection, inspired by the
heady, hippy chic days of Talitha Getty, makes white the latest black, Chloe the
newest Gucci.

But Yves Saint Laurent, owned by Gucci Group, will take the trendsetter trophy
again. This year, YSL designer Tom Ford made must-haves of peasant blouses,
ruched satin and tooled leather. What will be "in" next year? His Out of Africa
caftans, leopard prints and ring-pierced leather. Originals will be available at
YSL stores, including a new Sloane Street location; copies just about everywhere
else.

Most Promising Revamp? LVMH-owned leather house Loewe has hired Jose Enrique Ona
Selfa as its new designer. Those who have never even tried pronouncing the
label's name correctly (it's loo-weh-vey), will get plenty of practice. The
Spaniard, who can make leather ruffles look like lace, is hot. Holly Finn

Will Brown campaign for British euro entry?

Not this year, and quite possibly not before the next UK general election,
expected in 2005. Even the greatest euro-enthusiasts in Downing Street and the
Foreign Office do not expect a referendum before mid-2003.

Although Tony Blair would love to hold a referendum in this parliament if
conditions allow, Mr Brown will not agree unless he believes the economic case
is clear and unambiguous. His supporters say the argument must not only be won
at the time of the referendum but also seen by the public as a good move for two
or three years after Britain joins. They also cite the No vote in Denmark's euro
referendum - when an ambiguous economic assessment was given halfway through the
campaign - as a pitfall of not having a clear case. Expect further government
tension on this issue. Brian Groom

Will a human being be cloned in 2002?

The hysterical publicity in 2001 about maverick doctors wanting to clone people
- followed by the production of cloned human embryos - has created a widespread
impression that a cloned baby will appear soon. The reality is different.

In the first place, science has not reached the stage where "reproductive
cloning" is possible. The cloned embryos produced in November by Advanced Cell
Technology in the US did not get beyond the six-cell stage - far too young to
prove whether they would survive when implanted into a foster mother's womb -
and many scientists regard the ACT announcement as little more than a publicity
stunt.

Second, even if reproductive cloning were technically feasible, none of the
would-be cloners has the laboratory facilities or access to the large number of
human eggs that would be required to carry it out. It is quite likely that a
tabloid newspaper somewhere in the world will claim the birth of a cloned baby
during 2002 but very unlikely that this will really happen. Clive Cookson

Will Prodi make a comeback?

The president of the European Commission compares himself to a marathon runner
but halfway through his five-year term Romano Prodi has still to hit his stride.
Blame a poor start, weak staff and a lack of discipline. His big mistake was to
spend too much time cultivating the European parliament rather than
consolidating his base in the European Council, where the power really lies.

All is not lost, providing Mr Prodi makes the Commission a power broker during
enlargement negotiations with central and southern European candidates, due to
reach a climax next year. He should also use his post to preach market
liberalisation, a big theme of the Spanish presidency that starts on January 1.

Another big test will come in next year's constitutional convention. Mr Prodi
will need all his skill and political courage to halt what looks like a terminal
decline in the political authority of the Commission. Lionel Barber

Will Berlusconi blow it?

However much his critics would wish otherwise, the 65-year-old media magnate
will still be Italian prime minister in 12 months' time. But he can expect
several awkward moments in the coming year.

The worst may come in the spring when judges rule in a long-running trial
against Silvio Berlusconi on charges of corrupting judges. His government will
continue to be rocked, too, by disputes between Europhobes such as Northern
League leader Umberto Bossi and committed pro-Europeans such as foreign minister
Renato Ruggiero.

But Italy's public prosecutors will not topple Mr Berlusconi from power. Mr
Bossi will not desert the government as he did in 1994. And despite all his
recent declarations about wanting to defend Italy's national interests, Mr
Berlusconi will surprise his European Union partners by confessing that, at
heart, he is a good European. James Blitz

Will the US productivity miracle prove a mirage?

No - but only because it takes time to distinguish a sustainable rise in the
trend rate of productivity growth from a one-off jump or the reversible impact
of unsustainable investment.

Between the third quarter of 1990 and the first quarter of 2001, the successive
peaks of the past cycle, labour output per hour in the non-farm business sector
rose at a compound annual rate of 2 per cent. In the previous cycle, which began
in the third quarter of 1981, productivity rose at only 1.5 per cent a year. But
this improvement was hardly a miracle: output per hour rose at an annual rate of
2.8 per cent between 1957 and 1973.

Over the last five years of the past cycle, productivity growth accelerated to
2.4 per cent a year. But this coincided with unsustainable economic growth
driven by an equally unsustainable investment boom. Trend annual growth in
labour productivity per hour may well be 2 per cent now. But it could be even
lower. The truth will not be known until the end of the next cycle. Martin Wolf

Will Arafat survive?

Although he is physically trapped in his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah and
politically isolated, no one dares to write Yassir Arafat off yet. As much as
Israel would like to be rid of him, it is unlikely to eliminate him for fear of
provoking international outrage. Exasperated as the US is with Arafat, it has
yet to give up on him, for lack of a better alternative.

What seems certain, however, is that Arafat's leadership has been permanently
damaged. At home, he has lost much of his credibility. Abroad, he is viewed as
untrustworthy and ineffective. This need not mean that his political career is
over. But it does suggest that his ability to lead will be increasingly
crippled. Roula Khalaf

Will the euro prove to be expensive?

There have been so many dire predictions about the changeover to euro notes and
coins, you would think the new currency would be a costly disaster. It will not.

Yes, pensioners will be confused. Notes will be forged. Cash dispensers will run
out of money. So what? Within a few months Europeans will learn to respect the
euro, if not to love it.

Consumers will be no worse or better off. Retailers have so far not used the
changeover to increase prices. But nor will prices across the eurozone converge
rapidly to the lowest level, if at all. Inflation - the most important test -
will be subdued.

Germany will suffer more than others under the single monetary policy and tight
public spending constraints. The euro will turn out to be more expensive for the
Germans than for anyone else. Ben Hall

Which team will win the World Cup?

The Fifa World Cup finals in Korea and Japan - the first to be held in Asia -
will have an all-too-familiar look. Expect Argentina and Italy, both previous
winners, plus holders France, to be in the running. Do not be surprised if
Brazil, which struggled to qualify, does well too.

Argentina is already installed as favourite, based on the ease with which it
qualified plus the quality of players such as Juan Sebastian Veron and Javier
Saviola. Economic collapse at home will only heighten the desire to succeed. Tom
O'Sullivan

Is Afghanistan going to be governable?

After two decades of foreign-backed communist rulers, warlordism and brutal
theocracy, almost any conceivable development will be positive.

But there are grounds for optimism. First, however imperfect it appears, the
interim government led by Hamid Karzai does represent a broad range of Afghan
interests. Second, the United Nations - and powerful foreign governments - are
desperate to stabilise Afghanistan. Third, the international community is
prepared to pump billions of dollars into reconstruction.

But Afghanistan's tribal traditions, drug-fuelled criminal culture and regional
power rivalries will ensure that any future political system will diverge wildly
from western notions of a nation state. John Thornhill

Will Mugabe go quietly?

The pressures on him grow by the day: tourism is declining; food and fuel
shortages are growing; foreign investment has dried up; inflation is soaring;
the national currency is declining; and International Monetary Fund and World
Bank support is in effect suspended.

With draconian legislation in place, the run-up to the presidential election in
March will be relatively peaceful. The worst thuggery will come in the last week
before the poll - but it will be too late to avert defeat.

Mr Mugabe may fight on from a presidential bunker but, at the risk of turmoil in
the towns, where opposition to his regime is at its strongest. In that case the
army will be forced to arbitrate and ensure his departure, in return for amnesty
for him and his family or their safe passage to Libya. Michael Holman

What next after Argentina's default?

Debt default and a new currency should give the government a chance to soothe
social tensions. But monetary stability remains precarious and without access to
foreign capital it is difficult to see how Argentina can return to sustained
growth.

Elsewhere in Latin America, no other country will default on external debt,
although Brazil could come under pressure if the inflow of foreign investment
declined. The drugs-financed guerrilla war will rumble on in Colombia. But
Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez's radical populism has polarised
politics, is the most likely trouble spot. Richard Lapper

Can Bush translate military triumph into domestic success?

Successful war leaders have something of a mixed record on the home front.
George Bush Snr found what an impostor military triumph could be when it was
quickly succeeded by electoral disaster. But Franklin Roosevelt proved an
unmatched leader in war and peace and Abraham Lincoln was no slouch on either
front.

This is pretty august company for George W. Bush, less than a year into his
presidency. His place in history will depend on maintaining the momentum of
military success overseas, without risking overreach in the global war on
terror. But it will also require him to be the statesman at home. That will mean
tilting somewhat towards a more centrist, nation-first approach. Handled
skilfully, his chances of entering the pantheon, albeit in the lower ranks, are
not bad. Gerard Baker

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 21, 2001 Friday
USA Edition 2

Time to give Cuba a chance and take it off the terror list

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 504 words

From Rep James P. McGovern.

Sir, Since September 11, the Bush administration has wisely chosen to reach out
not only to our traditional allies but also to many long-time adversaries in
order to create an international coalition to combat terrorism. The US has
eagerly courted Syria, Iran and Libya, as well as nations with which we have had
sharp differences over human rights, such as Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Russia and
China. Unfortunately, there has been one notable exception to this policy of
outreach: Cuba.

There is still time to reach out to Cuba and exploit that country's close
relations with national leaders throughout the developing world. An obvious
first step would be to remove Cuba from the US list of countries that allegedly
support terrorism, as the Blair government recently suggested.

Such an action would clearly demonstrate our seriousness in the fight against
terror and show President George W. Bush's sincerity in saying that other
countries should be judged by what they will do in the future on terrorism, not
by what they may have done in the past. However, it would not and should not
mute legitimate US criticisms of Cuba's poor record on democracy and human
rights.

Unlike other countries on the State Department's list of terrorist nations, Cuba
is not accused of planning, financing, sponsoring or carrying out acts of
international terror. US defence and security agencies cannot report any
terrorist acts sponsored by Cuba itself and have also concluded that Cuba does
not pose a significant security threat to the US or to other countries in the
region.

The US justifies Cuba's inclusion on the list by stating that Cuba provides a
haven to Basque terrorists and US fugitives and - like several other Latin
American and European countries - maintains ties to Colombian guerrilla forces.
However, the Basques are there as the result of a Cuban-Spanish agreement. The
fugitives are there because there is no US-Cuban extradition treaty. And Cuba
has facilitated talks between the Colombian government and the guerrillas.

Since September 11, despite harsh rhetoric opposing the bombing in Afghanistan,
the Cuban government has denounced terrorism and spoken out strongly against the
attacks on the US. It has pledged support for ending world terrorism and stated
its eagerness to work with the United Nations to that end. Through the UN and
the Organisation of American States, we should be welcoming, testing and
harnessing these offers.

The US list of terrorist nations must have genuine legitimacy and meaning. It
should be a serious legal document, not a political plaything or a tool for
applying diplomatic pressure on issues other than terror. President Fidel Castro
does little to hide his enmity of the US - and vice versa. Each country,
however, has much to gain by collaborating in the war against international
terrorism. The first step towards increasing mutual confidence is to remove Cuba
from the list of terrorist nations.

James P. McGovern, US House of Representatives

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 20, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

Wembley chosen but inquiry delays scheme NATIONAL STADIUM MINISTER ORDERS
INDEPENDENT REVIEW INTO AWARDING OF CONTRACTS:

BYLINE: By MATTHEW GARRAHAN and CATHY NEWMAN

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 948 words

The government and the Football Association yesterday finally chose Wembley as
the site of the national stadium, but another four months will lapse before it
becomes clear whether the troubled project stands a chance of being built.

But if an independent inquiry ordered by Tessa Jowell, sport and culture
secretary, finds fault with contracts awarded by the FA to Multiplex, the
construction company, the scheme could be scuppered. This would offer hope to
Birmingham's rival bid.

It was revealed yesterday that the choice of Multiplex by Wembley National
Stadium Limited, the FA subsidiary in charge of the project, had been the
subject of an independent review by David James, the troubleshooter brought in
by the government to rescue the Millennium Dome.

Mr James' review is understood to reflect criticisms made at the time Multiplex
won the contract. Prior to winning the Wembley deal, Multiplex had been awarded
a stadium expansion contract at Stamford Bridge. This is home to Chelsea
football club, of which Ken Bates is chairman.

Mr Bates was chairman of WNSL when Multiplex was awarded the Wembley deal but is
no longer involved in the scheme.

Mr James' review found no evidence of "criminality or impropriety" in the
procurement process, but was "critical of the procurement process up to
September 2000". Mr Bates was last night considering his response to the
findings of the James inquiry and to Ms Jowell's comments. He declined to
comment.

Ms Jowell insisted the FA and WNSL clear four hurdles before the Wembley deal
was finalised. Independent scrutiny into the Multiplex contracts needs to be
carried out, to assess whether it offers value for money. The National Audit
Office is to analyse whether the Pounds 20m of public funds for transport links
is money well spent; corporate governance changes have to be made; and a process
of due diligence needs to be completed.

If the NAO decided the Pounds 20m was an inappropriate use of public funds, it
would be a setback but would not derail the project. More serious would be
criticism of the choice of Multiplex as part of the requested independent
review.

If fault is found with the Multiplex contracts, the Wembley plans could collapse
as the company is an integral part of the FA's financing package. Multiplex is
to underwrite the stadium's construction risk and if the FA was forced to reopen
the construction tendering it is unlikely Multiplex would remain a supporter.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Patrick Carter, author of the national
stadium report which endorsed Wembley as site of the national stadium, said the
FA had until March to complete due diligence on the scheme.

"We are suggesting a pretty finite timetable," he said. "If Wembley isn't taken
to contract within that time, then Birmingham should be considered." Wembley was
chosen over Birmingham, he added, because it offered better prospects for
premium seat income.

"If you look at the income of a 90,000-seat stadium, the general admission seats
pay for the running of the stadium. But if you want to borrow money (to build
the stadium) we have to do it on the back of income from premium seats."

Mr Carter blamed a "muddled picture" over the lines of responsibility for the
project's previous failures. "People were very frank to us that WNSL was
unconvincing. The review was very clear - they had to strengthen the
management."

He added he was "impressed" by changes made by WNSL and the FA to the project.
"One of the things the FA has had to do is take ownership of the scheme and see
it through, and it has responded to that. It now has 90 days or so to get things
tied down."

Ms Jowell said if the stadium failed "the FA accept, as does the government,
that it remains a possible outcome that no national stadium will be developed".

Adam Crozier, FA chief executive, said: "It will be one of the finest, if not
the finest, football stadiums in the world."

Troubleshooter turns his guns on the biggest challenges

David James is a man who relishes challenges. Pitch at him the Millennium Dome,
Railtrack, Wembley Stadium and he keeps coming back for more. And all this since
just last year, writes Scheherazade Daneshkhu.

At 64, an age when most people's thoughts turn to retirement, Mr James would be
happy to take on the high-profile disaster story of Railtrack after a gruelling
15 months sorting out the finances of the Dome.

Mr James has been working as an unpaid consultant for WestLB, the German bank
that has made an offer for Railtrack. If the bank succeeds, he would be made
chairman.

"I'm a serious trouble-shooter and you must go for the biggest," he said of the
attractions of Railtrack. "It's a matter of pride."

In his long career, Mr James helped MI6 unravel the Iraqi supergun affair after
one of his team uncovered suspect parts at a subsidiary of Eagle Trust, the
company that he was chairing. He was caught up in the 1986 US bombing raid on
Libya while negotiating the release of 12 British hostages who worked for a
subsidiary of Central & Sheerwood, an industrial holding company.

Other corporate missions have included helping to structure the rescue of the
Lloyd's of London insurance market and unwinding the global freight group LEP
with Pounds 750m of debts.

He accepted the daunting task of ensuring the Dome traded as a solvent company
with only three months trading left when he was appointed chairman in September
2000.

That job was discharged with confidence this week when the Dome was handed over
to liquidators at KPMG for a solvent wind-up, and Pounds 25m was handed back to
the Millennium Commission.

A workaholic bachelor, Mr James has a keen interest in the arts, horseracing and
cricket.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 20, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 2

Inquiry casts doubt on plan for Wembley NATIONAL STADIUM MINISTER ORDERS
FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION TO OBTAIN INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF DEAL WITH MULTIPLEX:

BYLINE: By SCHEHERAZADE DANESHKHU, MATTHEW GARRAHAN and CATHY NEWMAN

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 938 words

The troubled Wembley national stadium project has been shelved for another four
months after the government raised serious questions about the Football
Association's plans.

Tessa Jowell, culture secretary, ordered the FA to obtain an independent
assessment of its deal with Multiplex, the construction company, to build a
90,000-seat stadium in north-west London.

The government had been planning to approve the project on Monday but was forced
to delay a decision after allegations about the contract with Multiplex came to
light.

Ms Jowell told the Commons yesterday that the national stadium may not be built
at Wembley, and may not even be built at all.

If the independent review into the FA's plans finds serious faults, the national
stadium scheme could be awarded to Birmingham instead.

Ms Jowell was told at the end of November about concerns that Wembley National
Stadium Ltd, the FA subsidiary in charge of the project, "had not adhered to
best procurement practices or corporate government arrangements" when it was
negotiating its deal with Multiplex.

On Tuesday, the culture secretary was handed a report by David James, the
troubleshooter brought in by the government to rescue the Millennium Dome,
raising worries about "a lack of transparency . . . and a failure to deal
properly with actual or potential conflicts of interests", she told MPs
yesterday.

Mr James' review, commissioned by WNSL, is understood to reflect criticisms made
at the time Multiplex won the contract. Ken Bates, chairman of WNSL when
Multiplex was awarded the Wembley contract, also awarded the construction
company a stadium expansion contract at Stamford Bridge, home to Chelsea
Football Club, which Mr Bates chairs. He is no longer involved in the national
stadium scheme.

Mr James' review found no evidence of "criminality or impropriety" in the
procurement process, but was "critical of the procurement process up to
September 2000", said WNSL. Mr Bates was last night considering his response to
the James inquiry and to Ms Jowell's comments. He declined to comment.

As well as commissioning the review, Ms Jowell has insisted that the FA and WNSL
clear three other hurdles before the Wembley deal is given the go-ahead. The
scrutiny is expected to take four months.

The government wants the National Audit Office, parliament's spending watchdog,
to analyse whether the Pounds 20m of public funds for transport links is money
well spent, and additional scrutiny of the financing. It is also thought to be
urging management changes at WNSL.

The choice of Wembley was endorsed in a report published yesterday by Patrick
Carter, the businessman appointed by ministers to examine the project.

Mr Carter told the Financial Times that Wembley had been chosen over Birmingham
because it offered better prospects for premium seat income.

He blamed the previous failure of the project to get off the ground on a
"muddled picture" over lines of responsibility. "People were very frank to us
that WNSL was unconvincing. The review was very clear they had to strengthen the
management."

He added: "One of the things the FA has had to do is take ownership of the
scheme and see it through, and it has responded to that. It now has 90 days or
so to get things tied down.

"If Wembley isn't taken to contract within that time, then Birmingham should be
considered."

Tim Yeo, shadow culture secretary, said: "Tessa Jowell has stoked the chaos and
confusion surrounding the national stadium to unprecedented levels."

Gerald Kaufman, chairman of the Commons culture committee, attacked the
government, describing the stadium as a "grubby and dodgy project in which the
Football Association has shown itself to be greedy in holding on to Pounds 120m
of public money to which it has no conceivable right". The FA had shown itself
to be "neither competent nor trustworthy", he said.

Troubleshooter turns his guns on the biggest challenges

David James is a man who relishes challenges. Pitch at him the Millennium Dome,
Railtrack, Wembley Stadium and he keeps coming back for more. And all this since
just last year, writes Scheherazade Daneshkhu.

At 64, an age when most people's thoughts turn to retirement, Mr James would be
happy to take on the high-profile disaster story of Railtrack after a gruelling
15 months sorting out the finances of the Dome.

Mr James has been working as an unpaid consultant for WestLB, the German bank
that has made an offer for Railtrack. If the bank succeeds, he would be made
chairman.

"I'm a serious trouble-shooter and you must go for the biggest," he said of the
attractions of Railtrack. "It's a matter of pride."

In his long career, Mr James helped MI6 unravel the Iraqi supergun affair after
one of his team uncovered suspect parts at a subsidiary of Eagle Trust, the
company that he was chairing. He was caught up in the 1986 US bombing raid on
Libya while negotiating the release of 12 British hostages who worked for a
subsidiary of Central & Sheerwood, an industrial holding company.

Other corporate missions have included helping to structure the rescue of the
Lloyd's of London insurance market and unwinding the global freight group LEP
with Pounds 750m of debts.

He accepted the daunting task of ensuring the Dome traded as a solvent company
with only three months trading left when he was appointed chairman in September
2000.

That job was discharged with confidence this week when the Dome was handed over
to liquidators at KPMG for a solvent wind-up, and Pounds 25m was handed back to
the Millennium Commission.

A workaholic bachelor, Mr James has a keen interest in the arts, horseracing and
cricket.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 20, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 3

Mugabe brings in bills to outlaw dissent

BYLINE: By TONY HAWKINS

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 369 words

DATELINE: HARARE

Four bills being pushed through parliament in Harare have put paid to any chance
that Zimbabwe's presidential elections will be recognised internationally,
diplomats said yesterday.

They said the passage of the bills - the public order and security bill, the
information bill, and bills to amend the country's electoral laws and industrial
relations act - made free and fair elections impossible.

Jonathan Moyo, information minster, said he expected the bills to be passed
today. The speaker of parliament yesterday suspended standing orders so that the
legislation could be rushed through parliament before Christmas. This will allow
President Robert Mugabe to sign the bills into law before the election campaign
starts early in the new year.

The Public Order bill makes it an offence to criticise the president. It will
also be an offence to "excite people and express dissatisfaction" with the
president. Police will be able to arrest anyone found without an identity card
or passport.

Tawanda Hondora, chairman of Lawyers for Human Rights said "any party
campaigning in presidential elections that criticises Mr Mugabe could be
prosecuted under the new law and sentenced to a heavy fine, or 10 years in jail,
or both.

"The bill is far worse than any previous colonial legislation in this country or
in apartheid South Africa," he added.

The information bill makes it a criminal offence for a journalist, foreign or
local, to report on events in Zimbabwe, unless licensed to do so by a government
body.

The proposed amendment to the labour legislation bans strikes, while the changes
to the electoral laws will make it impossible to hold free elections, according
to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Mr Mugabe has flown to Libya to renew the country's fuel supply agreement with
Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan president. The agreement has largely ended the
country's fuel supply crisis. In August, Libya agreed to a Dollars 360m
revolving credit arrangement to supply Zimbabwe with the equivalent of Dollars
90m of oil every quarter.

The fact that the deal is being renegotiated at a time of warnings of fuel
shortages soon suggests Zimbabwe has not been able to pay on time.
www.ft.com/zimbabwe

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 17, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Bula denies any Libyan link NEWS DIGEST:

BYLINE: By GAUTAM MALKANI

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK ; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 204 words

Bula denies any Libyan link

Bula Resources, the Irish oil company chaired by former Irish prime minister
Albert Reynolds, said a Libyan investment group with which it proposes placing
50m shares was not linked to the Libyan government.

The Dublin-based company had earlier described One Nine Investment
International, its new shareholder, as an investment arm of the Libyan
government.

However, in a statement to the Stock Exchange on Friday it said the investment
organisation should not be referred to as such.

Bula said the investment group was wholly owned by the Gaddafi International
Foundation for Charitable Associations, a non-governmental humanitarian
organisation based in Libya.

The foundation - of which Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's son, is
honorary chairman - entered the spotlight during last year's Philippines hostage
crisis when it helped organise a ransom payment that secured the release of
western hostages held by moslem rebels.

"One Nine has no connection whatsoever to any Libyan government entity or Libyan
individuals," the investment company said in a statement. "One Nine has intended
to acquire share equity in Bula but the deal has not been finalised," it added.
Gautam Malkani

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 12, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Libya buys stake in Bula Resources

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 34 words

Libya buys stake in Bula Resources

A foundation linked to Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, bought a stake in
Bula Resources, the Anglo-Irish oil company. Picture, Page 23; Libya takes
stake, Page 24

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 12, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Libya takes stake in Bula Resources

BYLINE: By GAUTAM MALKANI

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK ; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 382 words

A foundation linked to Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, yesterday bought a
stake in Bula Resources, the Anglo-Irish oil company chaired by Albert Reynolds,
the former Irish prime minister.

The Dublin-based company said it had placed 50m new shares with One Nine
Investment International, an investment arm of the Libyan government.

One Nine is wholly owned by The Gaddafi International Charitable Foundation,
which is headed by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's son.

The foundation entered the spotlight during last year's Philippines hostage
crisis when it helped organise a ransom payment that secured the release of
western hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf group of muslim rebels.

The investment marks a success in Bula's attempts to raise its profile in the
Middle East, with a particular focus on Libya and Iraq.

Bula has been trying to obtain exploration and production contracts in Libya for
the past five years after withdrawing from a disastrous foray into the former
Soviet Union.

The company, which is listed in Dublin and London, flagged Mr Reynolds'
experience of dealing with Libya when he was appointed chairman in 1999. "This
is an indication that confidence we've built up in the marketplace there is
coming to some fruition," said Tom Kelly, managing director.

He said only one western company had been granted acreage in Libya over recent
years, despite the suspension of United Nations sanctions in 1999 following the
handover of the Lockerbie suspects.

European oil groups, such as Agip-ENI of Italy, have enjoyed an advantage,
because US rivals are restricted from investing in Libya under US sanctions.

However, Mr Kelly stressed the investment did not signal the imminent granting
of any contracts. "It would be incorrect to say that we've production-sharing
contracts that are due to happen in the very near future," he said. "It was an
added bonus that an investment company in a country where we're trying to get
acreage has confidence in the company to invest in it."

One Nine bought its 2 per cent stake for about Euros 900,000 (Pounds 562,000).
Bula also placed a further 25m shares yesterday with O&M Management, a
Maltese-registered Libyan investment company. A further 2m shares were placed
with private investors, raising a total of Euros 1.38m.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 12, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Compass in right direction

BYLINE: By PETER JOHN and RUTH SULLIVAN

SECTION: STOCK MARKETS LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE ; Pg. 48

LENGTH: 988 words

Compass group surged to the top of the FTSE 100 gainers on a day of positive
news, which included full-year results in line with analysts' expectations and
upbeat comments on the coming year. Shares leapt 42, or almost 9 per cent, to
512p.

The catering group also announced a ten-year contract with British Airways to
provide the airline's employee restaurant and vending services in the UK, and
said it is also buying Japanese food service group Seiyo Food Systems for Pounds
193m.

ABN Amro said its 2002 forecasts remain unchanged on the back of good figures
and reiterated its "buy" recommendation.

Elsewhere in the leisure sector, First Choice turned in solid full-year results
with profits before tax, goodwill and exceptionals at Pounds 79.6m, and reported
an encouraging outlook. WestLB Panmure said it believes the travel operator
offers significant upside in the next six months and kept its "outperform"
stance. The shares slipped 1 1/2 to 134p.

The latest review of winners and losers in the UK market takes place today and
is based on last night's closing prices. It is expected to decree that GKN
leaves the FTSE 100 and P&O Princess joins. GKN fell 4 to 285p and P&O rose 2 to
279p.

There are more interesting goings on lower down the table. Personal organiser
group Psion and Thus, the Scottish telecoms group, are expected to move back
into the FTSE 250. This will continue a rollercoaster ride which has seen them
move from the FTSE 100 to the midcap and then to the small cap and back up, all
in the course of 18 months.

Elsewhere, the success of discount airlines despite the fallout from the
September 11 attacks should reflect well on Ryanair. The Irish group is set to
enter the Eurotop 300 index. Retailers put in a robust performance partly on the
hope there would be a further interest rate cut in the US which would encourage
consumers to spend more before Christmas.

Kingfisher flies

General retailer Kingfisher raced ahead 14 to 391 3/4p in sympathy with a recent
strong performance by its France-based unit Castorama.

Great Universal Stores was supported by an upgrade by UBS Warburg, which raised
its price target to 735p from 700p and reiterated its "buy" stance on the stock.
Shares rose 7 to 658p.

Carpetright joined the list of fallers and succumbed to a run of profit-taking
after it delivered solid interims in line with analysts' forecasts with pre-tax
profit up 13 per cent. Shares fell 24 1/2 to 596 1/2p. ING Barings Charterhouse
Securities said the carpet retailer continued to trade well with a good pipeline
of new stores but said the high level of cost growth will make any upgrades
unlikely. The broker said it preferred other consumer durable home stocks such
as Homestyle and MFI, and reiterated its "hold" stance on Carpetright.

Investec Henderson Crosthwaite also maintained its "hold" recommendation and
said the company looks as if it is reaching a ceiling on its gross margin.

Barclays shares rose 12 to Pounds 21.32 after Goldman Sachs repeated its
"Recommended List" rating on the bank with a Pounds 25 target. It also raised
its current year EPS estimate to 153.7p from 153.4p and forecast that Barclays
would have doubled its economic profit between 1999 and 2003, with the group's
Barclays Capital expected to have shown a fivefold increase over the same
period. It values the bank at above Pounds 25 a share.

On the other hand, Abbey National fell 28 to 944p as Goldman Sachs removed the
stock from its "Recommended List" and downgraded its stance to "market
outperformer" with an Pounds 11 target.

Goldman said Abbey National's inexpensive valuation was no longer as compelling,
following the disclosure of higher provisions required at the wholesale bank and
retail banking revenues, which could well disappoint in 2002.

It cut its earnings forecasts for Abbey by 9 per cent in 2001, 5 per cent in
2002 and 2 per cent in 2003 to take into account likely higher write-offs in the
wholesale bank business.

HBOS down

HBOS dropped 10 to 808 1/2p despite news that the group will exceed its own
annual target for savings from the merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland by
Pounds 70m.

Deutsche Bank reiterated its "buy" recommendation and 900p price target. It was
pleased that HBOS's statement contained no mention of exposure to Enron, the
collapsed US energy trading giant. Merrill Lynch said it might raise its current
year forecast by 3 per cent.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein repeated its "add" but Nomura reiterated its
"reduce", arguing that the positive effects of the statement would be
short-lived and the stock was fully valued.

Reckitt Benckiser gained 16 to 946p after positive comment from two brokers
following company visits.

West LB Panmure moved to "outperform" from "neutral", citing valuation grounds,
with the stock having underperformed the market by 20 per cent. The broker also
said that at a recent meeting, Reckitt's management was positive about the
outlook. UBS Warburg highlighted its "buy" stance and Pounds 11.70 price target
on the group after its own meeting with the company.

Oxford Glycosciences was the best performer in the FTSE 250, helped by news of a
collaboration deal with Atugen, a German biotech company. The shares closed a
net 72 1/2 higher at 717 1/2p.

The changes will be effective at the close of trading on December 21.

Bula Resources, the Irish exploration and production company, has secured a
strategic investment of around Pounds 500,000 from an investment group owned by
Colonel Muammer Gadaffi's International Charitable Foundation.

There is hope that, if the company has received the indirect backing of Libya's
leader, it will be in line for a development licence in the country.

However, insiders said the country's National Oil company maintains a strong
independent control over the licences and the tax regime is harsh. The shares
rose 25 per cent to 1 1/4p. Regular UK equities updates at www.ft.com/equities

LOAD-DATE: December 11, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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1042 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

December 8, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Fate of Taliban foreign fighters hangs in balance MERCENARIES:

BYLINE: By FINANCIAL TIMES STAFF

SECTION: ATTACK ON AFGHANISTAN MILITARY ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 479 words

Under the Geneva conven-tion governing conduct in war, foreign fighters -
mercenaries - are entitled to the same fair treatment as other prisoners of war.
But, in practice, their motives are regarded with such contempt that their
predicament is often much worse.

The fate of the foreign fighters allied with the Taliban, many from Arab
countries, is even more problematic than other mercenaries'. Most are part of
Osama bin Laden's army of warriors, accused of the September 11 terror attacks
in the US - the al-Qaeda network the US is seeking to eliminate.

With the Taliban yesterday surrendering the southern city of Kandahar, their
last bastion, there were reports that Hamid Karzai, the designated leader of the
interim Afghan government, would grant amnesty only to Afghan Taliban fighters
and not foreign ones.

He said al-Qaeda members must face "international justice". Arab and Pakistani
analysts, however, warned that Arab fighters faced the prospect of being
massacred. Amnesty International, the human rights group, called for
"appropriate arrangements for the processing and protection of fighters who have
surrendered".

Reports of mass killings of Arabs and the deaths last week of Taliban and
foreign prisoners in a revolt at a fortress near the town of Mazar-e-Sharif led
Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to support
Amnesty's call for a UN or other independent enquiry.

Yesterday she said her staff in Afghanistan were already "mapping out patterns
of massacres" of prisoners elsewhere.

A Pakistani official said no Arab country had yet expressed any interest in
taking back its nationals. "The Arabs don't want their people coming back home
because they know this would be the first step towards trouble. In Pakistan, we
are certainly not going to take them because that would create trouble for us."

The only apparent help from Arab governments has come from maverick Libya.
According to a report in Al-Hayat, the London-based pan Arab daily, Libya this
week proposed to negotiate with the Taliban the surrender of Arab warriors and
their families, set up a camp for them in Quetta in Pakistan, then win an
amnesty from their countries of origin.

The collapsing Taliban, however, will have little say in the future of the Arab
fighters. Instead, this is an increasingly urgent question for the Bush
administration.

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, and other senior officials have suggested
their focus is on leaders of the al-Qaeda network. Mr Rumsfeld expressed
confidence on Thursday that any negotiated surrender of Taliban leaders in
Afghanistan would meet US interests. But he stopped short of demanding that
Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders be handed over to the US. Mr Rumsfeld suggested
that an al-Qaeda member from an Arab country such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia might
be sent back to that country for trial.

LOAD-DATE: December 7, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 1, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Watch out! There's a jihad about!: Cal McCrystal on Iran, Iraq and Saddam, plus
a selection of current books that offer insights into the Middle East

BYLINE: By CAL MCCRYSTAL

SECTION: BOOKS ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 1220 words

One of the most difficultthings for both the writer and student of history, H.G.
Wells observed in The Outline of History, is to sustain the sense of
time-intervals "and prevent these ages becoming shortened by perspective in his
imagination". Addressing the same region in Neighbours, not Friends: Iraq and
Iran After the Gulf Wars (Routledge Pounds 12.99 / Dollars 19.95), Dilip Hiro
avoids the problem. Foreshortening doesn't get a look in here, partly because
his study is of much more recent events; but also because his chronological
torrent keeps it at bay.

His book is the last in a trilogy which explores Saddam Hussein's aggressive
exploits (the others being accounts of the Iran- Iraq conflict and the war that
followed Iraq's attempted annexation of Kuwait). Hiro's chronicle of all this
turmoil is exceedingly thorough, scrupulously balanced and dispassionate. In his
foray into a region possessing two-thirds of global petroleum reserves, he sings
no psalm and beats no drum. He lets known facts speak for themselves. This can
make for a dry read, in which a sense of place and personality is culled from
maps and recorded statements. But Hiro allows no impediment to our understanding
of how the US never gets things quite right in the Gulf.

Over the years, Washington came to perceive Saddam's rule as secular and
tolerable, "a stabilising influence in a region prone to volatility". The Iraqi
regime looked good, compared with, say, Syria (penniless, tied to Moscow),
Lebanon (wracked by a long and bloody civil war), Libya (manacled by a maniac),
Egypt (debt-ridden and bureaucratically sclerosed), or, in particular, Iran -
even after Khomeini's death. Further, Baghdad bought American agricultural
produce in vast quantities, gave American oil companies comfort and maintained a
strong and varied economy. Yet every American who had a reason to visit Baghdad
must have been aware that the US was smooching with a brutal tyranny. They chose
to ignore this until Saddam took his sadism into Kuwait. Hiro's introduction,
which picks up the threads of the two earlier books, explores the consequences
with a fastidious accumulation of detail that is both electrifying and
enlightening.

He lays before us the socio-political tapestries of Iraq and Iran after the
second Gulf War and illustrates how day-to-day handling of high-warp and
low-warp alters overall patterns into a seething picture. On to these images he
superimposes interesting questions, such as: why did the Americans not finish
Saddam off when they apparently had the chance? Because, the author explains,
the end of Saddam would have meant the fragmentation of Iraq, with the Shia
Muslim south adjoining Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, siding with Iran and enabling it
to extend its influence in the region. Such a scenario was anathema to both
Riyadh and Washington. Consequently, when Saddam's forces attacked Shia rebels
in March 1991, US forces did not intervene.

Much of the section on Iraq concerns United Nations inspections of Iraqi
munitions. Since we're talking about bulk stocks of mustard gas and sarin nerve
agents as well as nuclear elements - about which we all today have a heightened
awareness - this is the most gripping part of the book. A striking aspect is the
refusal of Arab countries, other than Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to back a US
threat of military action to force Saddam to provide a full inventory of these
weapons and their factories. Another is the weird choreography between
inspection teams and Saddam's men. When an inspection team wrongfoots the Iraqis
by filming them removing material from a military base in Falluja, for example,
the Iraqis dispatch 100 truckloads of material essentials of their nuclear
programme to the Tikrit area for storage at the presidential farms.

When the western powers do retaliate, Saddam gains politically at home. "The
Western attacks in the southern no-fly zone and outside distracted Iraqis from
their daily hardship," the author says. "Instead of blaming Saddam, they rallied
around him in the face of renewed US bombing, and began blaming the Western
powers' intransigence rather than their own government's behaviour for their
economic plight."

There follows a valuable analysis of the impact of sanctions under Clinton.
Among regrettably few instances of intimate disclosure in the book, one concerns
the calamitous collapse of the Iraqi Dinar. Nuha al Radi confides to her diary:
"Dinner at the Hatra Hotel; nouvelle cuisine - five bits of very charcoaled
meat, three slices of tomato and three small triangles of bread for 4,000
Dinars. My Toyota Corona cost that much in 1981."

And the impotence of the CIA to organise a coup against Saddam, and US failure
even to curb his military adventures into the Kurdish north and Shia south,
provide serious food for thought.

Meanwhile, Saddam was chatting up his old enemies the Iranians. Hiro's equally
compelling section on Iran depicts a nation which has gained from its
neighbour's loss: a high international profile, soaring oil revenues, low
inflation. Yet neither antipathy towards Iran's neighbour nor a growing trend
against clerical fanaticism in Tehran has caused Washington to radiate much
warmth towards the mullahs, even after the growth of a significant reform
movement and the conciliatory nature of Iran's leader Hojatalislam Muhammad
Khatami. By Hiro's account, American caution is well justified, its past
experiences being comparable with a puppy's overtures to a couple of porcupines.
For the moment, it's "Watch out! There's a jihad about!" * Bin Laden: Behind the
Mask of the Terrorist by Adam Robinson (Mainstream Pounds 7.99). Whisky? Women?
Sex clubs? Not quite the image of the Islamic hardliner - but this investigation
piles up the evidence of Osama's misspent youth in the fleshpots of pre-civil
war Beirut. And as for his lieutenants: al-Zawahiri a serial paedophile, Atta a
sexual deviant with a record of beating up prostitutes . . .It was Osama's
return to Saudi Arabia, and the Hajj to Mecca, that changed him (he gave away
his Mercedes SL 450) and the jihad against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan that
made him a celebrity. Once ousted from Saudi Arabia for troublemaking, he got
involved in producing two-thirds of the world's heroin. You know the rest. * Bin
Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America by Yossef Bodansky (Random House
Pounds 12.99/Prima Dollars 17.95). The same story, with a very different slant.
Bodansky's speciality is to unravel the secret pathways and networks that have
protected Bin Laden for so many years, enabling him to mobilise forces of terror
in dozens of countries. Bodansky paints in the background that radicalised the
quiet engineering student and engendered Bin Laden's visceral hatred of the
west. * The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (new edition) by Cyril Glasse (Stacey
International Pounds 45) contains no entry for Bin Laden or for al-Qaeda, which
may put things in some perspective. The entry on jihad is instructive, though,
and altogether this is a balanced and rewarding book. * Taliban: The Story of
the Afghan Warlords by Ahmed Rashid (Pan Pounds 7.99/Yale Dollars 14.95).
Published last year to general acclaim, this thorough and credible account of
the rise of the Taliban is now reissued with a new, post-September 11 Foreword.

LOAD-DATE: November 30, 2001

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1044 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

November 27, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

How a stranger can minimise danger: SECURITY: Sensible travellers can enjoy
better protection from crime in a foreign land than the people who live there,
suggest Amon Cohen

BYLINE: By AMON COHEN

SECTION: INSIDE TRACK BUSINESS TRAVEL ; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 676 words

Concerns about the safety of business travellers and expatriate workers have
focused in recent weeks on the threat of Islamist terrorism. This year's RiskMap
report, published by overseas security consultancy Control Risks Group, makes
clear that security is deteriorating worldwide even without this particular
worry.

Crime rates, especially involving violence, are spiralling in many countries.
Kidnapping is becoming more of a problem. Those countries with fewer security
problems are registering rises in petty crime, albeit from a much lower base.
Even the more firmly policed states of Cuba and Libya are not immune. CRG
reports a small but growing number of armed robberies in both.

CRG generally links worsening security to the downturn in economic conditions
around the world. "Argentina's problems are directly related to its economy,"
says Paul Doran, senior analyst for Latin America at CRG. "It was always
considered one of the safest countries in Latin America and to a large extent it
still is but it is experiencing an increase in opportunistic kidnappings."

In spite of the gloomy conclusions of the study, Christopher Grose, CRG
director, urges travellers not to be deterred from visiting developing countries
as they will usually be well insulated from the problems around them. "The
people who are going to have to deal with increased crime are residents," he
says. "Business travellers have layers of protection, especially if they stay in
reputable hotels. It is only when they leave those layers, such as by letting
people they don't know into their room or rushing on to the street to hail a
taxi, that they expose themselves to significant risks. If they follow sensible
guidelines, rising crime in the country they are visiting should affect them
minimally."

As always, good intelligence is vital in unfamiliar locations. In Colombia, for
instance, kidnappers specifically target foreigners; in Brazil and Mexico, they
tend to avoid them because they think locals are more likely to meet ransom
demands quickly.

It is a mistake to treat Middle East countries as one homogeneous, hostile
entity simply because of the preponderance of Muslims. "Across the region, risk
is not as high as popularly imagined," says Josh Mandel, CRG Middle East
analyst. "It is higher than normal but by no means critical."

That said, risk assessment in the Middle East would change drastically if the US
engaged in military action outside Afghanistan. At the moment this is a move
being urged by only a few on a hawkish fringe but bags would have to be packed
quickly if they did prevail.

It is in the west, according to CRG, that business travellers should become more
aware of the threat of terrorism. CRG warns of a credible risk of attacks in the
US, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the UK. It also believes it would be
possible for terrorists to attempt further seizures of aircraft to use as guided
missiles on the grounds that al-Qaeda may still have links to further trained
pilots. "An increase in airport and airline security has reduced, but not
removed, the risk of further successful attacks," says CRG.

Given some shocking failures in security since September 11, this is plausible.
In one instance in the US, a sheepish passenger surrendered his handgun to a
cabin attendant after opening his briefcase in mid-flight and discovering he had
forgotten to remove it before leaving home.

The risk of a terrorist strike on any specific flight or fixed western target
is, in fact, so small that most business people will not be deterred from
travelling.

Also in the west, the CRG entry for the UK points out, for instance, that
"levels of street crime will remain higher than in most other west European
countries." The UK has also seen the highest incidence credit card skimming.
This is the appropriation of a credit cardholder's details - in a restaurant,
for example - to forge a dummy card that is used to make several high-value
purchases in a different country. RiskMap 2002 is available from Control Risks
Group. www.crg.com.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 27, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

Fighting terrorism first, multilateralism second: While Europe fusses about
biological weapons treaties and the rights of terrorists, America is acting

BYLINE: By AMITY SHLAES

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 931 words

The mood towards the US among its allies has shifted. Where before Europe was
ready to supply unstinting support - "We are all Americans now" - today there is
hesitation and, behind closed doors, even some scolding.

When it needed the allies, the US called on continental Europe and the UK to
join it in its new war. But now America is accused of behaving like a cowboy -
reverting to "the old Bush 'up yours' unilateralism," as The Guardian put it.
America is not doing its part to support great multilateral causes ranging from
biological weapons diplomacy to international justice for terrorists.

But the trouble with multilateralism is that it has become a game - a game for
its own sake. Multilateral institutions are, after all, only as good as the goal
they serve. And at this crucial moment, that goal is ending the global threat
that gave us September 11.

Seen in this context, US departures from various multilateral agendas cease to
look like cowboy antics. Rather they represent leadership that can make the
world safer, including for the nations doing the scolding.

Take a security issue at the top of the mind of many citizens of Western
nations: germ warfare. This month, at a conference of the 1972 Biological
Weapons Convention in Geneva, the US renewed its objections to a new draft for
the treaty. John Bolton, the State Department's under-secretary for arms control
and international security, pointed out that the treaty had not prevented
signatory nations from developing biological weapons. Instead, the treaty had
afforded a cover to nations that continued to mill anthrax.

So, Mr Bolton said, will the new protocol. That is because it does not contain
any effective means for verifying whether signatory nations are keeping their
word. The plan requires advance notice, allowing laboratories there to conceal
their work.

Additionally, the US said that Iraq, a 1972 signatory, "developed, produced and
stockpiled biological warfare agents and weapons and continued this activity
even after ratifying the (biological weapons convention) in 1991". It took
advantage of the absence of United Nations inspectors since 1998 to continue
such work. Iraq denied it, a statement carried all over the world.

The US also pointed a finger at North Korea's Kim Jong-il and was backed by
South Korea's defence minister, who has announced that Pyongyang now controls as
much as 5,000 tonnes of biological and chemical weapons. Tehran and Libya, the
US said, are also developing biological weapons. Syria "may be capable of
producing small quantities of an agent" and there is disturbing evidence about
Sudan.

To deter scientists and their masters from developing such weapons in future,
the US wants the treaty to require signatories to prosecute those in their
countries who work in germ warfare laboratories. It has also called for a new
international code of conduct for all scientists and monitoring of individual
scientists.

By ostentatiously listing signatory offenders, America has cast doubt on whether
reliance on the treaty alone can prevent rogue nations from fortifying their
germ arsenals. One might think that European governments would side vociferously
with the US on this issue. After all, last week brought news of another case of
inhalation anthrax involving a woman in Connecticut.

A reminder of the futility of the biological weapons convention also came with
news of the death of Vladimir Pasechnik, a former official in the Soviet Union's
germ warfare programme. After his defection to the west, Mr Pasechnik said he
never knew his research violated the Soviet Union's legal commitment not to
engage in such work.

Yet when the Iraqi regime objected to the US claim, European governments kept
silent, or isolated the US by accusing it behind closed doors of being
"counterproductive". The same habit - favouring multilateralismper se over the
recognition of bitter realities - is showing up in other arenas. A Spanish judge
announced that Spain would not hand over suspected terrorists to the US for
trial unless it promised not to try them under military tribunals, or to subject
them to the death penalty. If the US did not agree, the implication was, it was
not measuring up to the new global standard on human rights, as embodied in such
multilateral documents as the European convention on human rights. The truth is
that this would slow down the US in what everyone says is crucial work: bringing
terrorists to justice.

Cowboy has become code for "dumb Republican"; implicit in the scolding of the US
cowboy is the argument that the Clinton administration played the multilateral
game better. This is true, insofar as that administration took greater pains not
to upset others. It did not name names (aside from Iraq) at weapons convention
meetings. But this focuson finesse failed to prevent rogue states from building
up their stockpiles.

It may well be that there are motives for the new scolding. The US is weighing
seriously toppling Saddam Hussein, germ war factories and all, and Britain may
not want to go along. The Spanish government may value its opposition to the
death penalty more highly than pursuing terrorists. But neither of these goals
has much to do with multilateralism.

For its part, the US does not have the luxury of fussing about diplomacy; it
must proceed as best it can, for it was Osama bin Laden's initial target. When
Europe hurts the US it also hurts itself, because it makes its own citizens more
vulnerable to future terror attacks. When we support multilateralism for its own
sake, we all lose.

amity.shlaes@ft.com

LOAD-DATE: November 26, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 23, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

A solo performer by nature: The war on terrorism has obliged the US to engage
more fully with the rest of the world. But its instincts remain unilateralist

BYLINE: By PHILIP STEPHENS

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 1097 words

Welcome back. So chorused America's allies as the grim aftermath of September 11
saw the US return to the international community. A quickening drift to
unilateralism had been halted. Washington had reawoken to its vulnerabilities
and, with them, to its responsibilities as the sole superpower. It re-engaged in
the Middle East, paid its outstanding dues to the United Nations and thawed
relations with Russia and China. Let's not celebrate too soon.

That US foreign policy has changed there can be no argument. George W. Bush,
elected on a platform of America first, has been obliged to make the war on
international terrorism the lodestar of his presidency. For that he needs
friends. The administration that scorned Bill Clinton's foreign policy activism
finds that it too cannot ignore disorder and chaos on the other side of the
world. The distant complexities of America's national interest are back in
focus. To stand aside in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is to
jeopardise US strategic interests throughout the region. To ignore the dispute
between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is to acquiesce in the spread of
terrorism.

These new perspectives have been met with unvarnished enthusiasm in Europe. Tony
Blair has been candid about the purpose of his tireless advocacy for the US-led
coalition in Afghanistan. Britain's interest lies in cementing the shift in US
policy to bind Mr Bush into a new system of international relations. Diplomats
speak of a breakthrough. Transatlantic conversations deemed impossible before
September 11 are now a commonplace.

This change was born of military as much as political necessity. The unexpected
speed of the Taliban's collapse has attracted much comment about America's
military might. Bombing works. Well, it works when combined with the awesome
technology that only the US can deploy - total surveillance, missiles fired
through doorways by unmanned Predator aircraft, interception of the enemy's
every telephone call and radio transmission, bombs that bust the deepest
bunkers. How could anyone have doubted the Pentagon's ability to win this war?

Dazzling though it is, the lethal technology tells only half the story. The war
has shown the US to be as dependent on others as it is singularly powerful. To
deploy all this weaponry, it needed friends, lots of them. Washington has relied
on the support or acquiescence of more than half-a-dozen states. It needed
military bases in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkey; a command and
control centre in Saudi Arabia; permission to overfly Iran; support from Russia
and China; the use of the British territory of Diego Garcia. There have been
extraordinary discussions with Beijing about mounting search and rescue
operations from Chinese soil. And for all its satellites and spy planes, the US
has solicited intelligence from regimes as unlikely as Libya. There is a message
here. Even the superpower cannot wage war from aircraft carriers.

Engagement and coalition-building, though, do not meet the European definition
of multilateralism. As Mr Bush contemplates the prospect of a speedy victory in
Afghanistan, we can already see the emerging differences about the scope and
scale of America's new role. From Washington we hear that the US must not be
constrained in its war against terrorism by global entanglements. It is as
reluctant now as it ever was before September 11 to submit to international
jurisdictions. It jealously guards its freedom of action.

The hawks around Mr Bush argue too that it cannot be deflected from the war
against terrorism by the task of nation-building in Afghanistan. America fights
the wars; others can make the peace. The US cause is righteous. So it can ask of
its friends help without hindrance, co-operation without constraint. As Mr Bush
himself put it in his address to the UN, the "urgent and binding obligation" to
stand alongside the US is non-negotiable. Few echoes here of Mr Blair's
Gladstonian vision of a new global order. Nor of Franklin Roosevelt's postwar
determination to embed America's security in a durable framework of
international co-operation.

So Washington signals its continuing hostility to a host of multilateral
treaties and protocols it has lately scorned. This week John Bolton, an
under-secretary of state, summarised the administration's approach to
multilateral arms control. Mr Bolton pronounced a new protocol designed to give
teeth to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention as, quite simply, "dead".

So too, it seems, remains any hope of US participation in the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty or in agreements barring the use of landmines or imposing controls on
arms exports. Beyond the field of security, Mr Bush will not change his mind on
the Kyoto climate change treaty or the International Criminal Court. Treaties
equal intrusion.

Contrast that with the European instinct. Here governments have few hang-ups
about pooling sovereignty in the cause of greater security or a cleaner world.
They do it every day in the European Union. The links, or rather the constant
overlaps, between foreign policy and domestic politics are already part of
everyday life. Interdependence is a fact. So European leaders take
multilateralism to mean partnership, not ad hoc coalitions of the willing.

Optimists among these leaders will tell you that it was never expected that Mr
Bush would make a giant leap in a few short months. US conservatives will always
feel uneasy about signing up to treaties and protocols that constrain the
nation's capacity to run its own affairs. But the pressures, these optimists
add, are all in the right direction.

Winning in Afghanistan will not free America of the need for allies. Quite the
opposite. The "soft war" on terrorism - fought by intelligence communities,
financial authorities and law enforcement agencies - requires still more of
allies. Effective action against the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction is possible only through collective effort. The US national interest
will demand that it be more attentive to the sensibilities of others. Step by
step, Mr Bush will be pulled along the path that leads from engagement to
multilateralism.

There is something in all of this. But behind it lies an unspoken fear. Victory
in Afghanistan may embolden the US. Triumphalism could yield to temptation.
Flushed with success in killing Osama bin Laden, Mr Bush might listen to his
hawks and go after Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Nothing is yet decided. But that in
itself tells you why the applause has been premature.

philip.stephens@ft.com

LOAD-DATE: November 22, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 20, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 2

US names and shames on bioweapons GERM WARFARE WASHINGTON DENOUNCES SIX
COUNTRIES ACCUSED OF HAVING OR SEEKING SUCH WEAPONS:

BYLINE: By FRANCES WILLIAMS

SECTION: ATTACK ON AFGHANISTAN INVESTIGATION & ECONOMY ; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 402 words

DATELINE: GENEVA

The US yesterday took the unusual step of publicly denouncing six countries -
Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan - for having or seeking to
acquire biological weapons. The move came as it sought to build support for
proposals by the Bush administration to strengthen a 1972 United Nations
bioweapons treaty.

John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control at the US State
Department, told the opening session of the fifth treaty review conference in
Geneva that Washington was extremely concerned about violations of the 1972
convention by some signatories, and by the potential use of germ weapons by
terrorist groups and states that supported them.

"So I plan to name names. Prior to September 11, some would have avoided this
approach. The world has changed, however, and so must our business-as-usual
approach," Mr Bolton said.

Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Libya have all ratified the UN convention which bans
the development, producing, stockpiling and acquisition of biological and toxin
weapons. Their use is outlawed by the 1925 Geneva protocol.

The US Central Intelligence Agency has previously pointed the finger at several
other countries suspected of having biological weapons programmes, including
India and Pakistan. Mr Bolton said other countries were being contacted
"privately".

The US is using the "naming and shaming" of states alleged to be violating the
biological weapons treaty to justify its withdrawal last summer from talks on an
anti-cheating protocol, and to garner support for alternative proposals Mr
Bolton put before the conference yesterday.

Mr Bolton said the draft protocol, which was due to have been approved at the
review conference, would not have stopped these violations or bioterrorism by
groups such as al-Qaeda.

The US proposals, which Washington hopes will be adopted by the conference,
include national laws to criminalise bioweapons activities and strengthen
controls on pathogenic materials.

The US has also suggested putting international investigations of suspected
biological weapons activity under the authority of the UN secretary-general. Mr
Bolton acknowledged yesterday that such investigations would need approval by
the Security Council where the US, Russia, China, UK and France, wield a veto.

However, other countries criticised the US for abandoning the verification talks
and said they wanted multilateral negotiations to continue.

LOAD-DATE: November 19, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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1048 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

November 14, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Libya blamed over 1980s bombing

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 25 words

Libya blamed over 1980s bombing

A German court said Libya was largely to blame for a 1986 Berlin disco bombing
that killed three people. Page 12

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 14, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Libya blamed for 1986 Berlin disco bombing

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: EUROPE ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 452 words

DATELINE: BERLIN

A German regional court yesterday said Libya was largely to blame for a bomb
explosion in a Berlin disco in 1986 that killed three people and heightened
tensions at the time between Tripoli and the west.

In a ruling with significance for the US-led campaign against terrorism, the
Berlin court found four people guilty of involvement in planting the bomb on
April 5 1986 in La Belle disco in the then West Berlin. The nightclub was
frequented by US military personnel. Some 230 people were injured in the
explosion.

A German woman found guilty of murder was sentenced to 14 years in prison while
a Palestinian, a Libyan and a Lebanese-born German were sentenced to between 12
and 14 years for attempted murder. A fifth person was acquitted.

Judge Peter Marhofer said in a statement that "the court was convinced that the
Libyan state was at least to a large extent responsible" for the disco attack.
He said it was "planned by members of the Libyan secret service in senior
positions in the Libyan (embassy) in East Berlin". He added that the four people
found guilty had been manipulated by the Libyans into planting the bomb.

Detlev Mehlis, the chief prosecutor, declared before the verdict that proving
his charge of Libyan state terrorism would strengthen the signal - important
after the September 11 attacks - that the sponsors of terrorism would not go
unpunished.

Despite pointing the blame at Tripoli, the judge complained that "the limited
willingness" of the German and US governments to share intelligence had
prevented the court from establishing whether Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi had
ordered the attack. He said this was one of the "disappointments" of the trial.

The trial, which started in November 1997, 11 years after the attack, was made
possible by German re-unification and the opening of East German secret service
files. The names of the accused were found in these files.

The attack was seen as revenge by Libya against the US, which had earlier sunk
two Libyan ships in the Mediterranean. Former US president Ronald Reagan
launched air raids against Tripoli and other Libyan targets 10 days after the
Berlin explosion. Libya was later blamed for the attack in 1988 on an airliner
over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people.

The German government yesterday welcomed the verdict and, noting a "change in
Libyan politics" in recent years, called on Tripoli to pay compensation to the
victims. The Libyan embassy refused to comment on the verdict.

The La Belle case triggered tensions in Germany earlier this year when a leaked
government memo suggested the Berlin government had known that Mr Gadaffi was
responsible for the attack without telling lawyers involved in the case.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 14, 2001 Wednesday
USA Edition 2

Unwitting sponsors of terrorist training camps

BYLINE: By PROF ROBERT KROL

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 503 words

From Prof Robert Krol.

Sir, The Bush administration's financial war against terrorism has frozen
Dollars 24m in private assets belonging to individuals and organisations that
fund terrorist activities. While this is an important first step, the financial
campaign must be expanded to include development assistance to states that
sponsor terrorism. Foreign development assistance cannot be overlooked because
it is fungible; dollars targeted at education or healthcare end up financing
terrorism.

The State Department currently classifies seven countries as sponsors of
terrorism (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria). Yet members
of the international coalition against terrorism provide development assistance
to them. The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development reports that
official development assistance to the seven countries identified as sponsors of
terrorism totalled Dollars 974m in 1999. Iran received Dollars 161m, Iraq
Dollars 76m. Syria benefited from Dollars 228m in development assistance.
Afghanistan, not officially labelled a sponsor of terrorism, received Dollars
142m in assistance during 1999. In 1999, Germany was the number one donor of
development assistance to both Iran and Iraq, providing Dollars 65m and Dollars
23m, respectively, to these countries. Japan topped the list of aid donors to
Syria at Dollars 93m. The US itself was the third largest contributor to
Afghanistan at Dollars 16m, behind the European Commission and the Netherlands.

The providers of international development assistance have the best of
intentions. Financial aid is directed to road construction, improving education
and providing much-needed health services to the poorest in the world. By
targeting the aid, rather than providing an unrestricted grant, donor countries
attempt to ensure that funds are used in a way that promotes economic
development. However, because aid is fungible, donors end up financing
government activities that do not help the poor - unwittingly becoming sponsors
of terrorist training camps. Countries that receive millions of dollars in aid
for education can shift revenues from domestic tax sources away from education
towards military expenditures and terrorist activities. The recipient government
can use the additional funds any way it wants. A recent World Bank report,
Assessing Aid, documents the fungible nature of development assistance. Targeted
financial aid has the same effect on government spending as an unrestricted
grant.

The international coalition against terrorism needs to take a hard look at the
potential for development assistance to be used as a source of funding for
terrorists. It is an increasingly attractive source of funds for financing
terrorism. For all countries, co-operation in the war against terrorism should
be a condition for development assistance. We must sever every financial artery
feeding the global terrorist network.

Robert Krol, Department of Economics, California State University, CA 91330, US

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 12, 2001 Monday
London Edition 2

Businesses urged to press on with overseas trade trips

BYLINE: By JIM PICKARD

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 207 words

The government insists that it is business as usual for trade missions to the
Middle East, central Asia and north Africa, despite one cancellation and a
postponement.

A trip to Israel, scheduled for September, has been postponed until March, and a
mission to Libya has been cancelled.

There has also been a drop in the number of business people joining
government-organised visits, according to Trade Partners UK, the public body
that organises them.

But the group urged industry leaders to join the trips, which are arranged to
stimulate trade deals between different countries. "From what we can see, they
are continuing with confidence, it does not seem to be affecting business at
all," it said.

Each trade mission had seen a handful of managers dropping out, because it had
become more difficult to obtain insurance for such travel. "If you are flying
close to a war zone your insurance company will not be so keen to insure you,"
said Trade Partners UK.

Companies have been advised to take advice from the Foreign Office's website
when their staff are travelling abroad. Unilever, the international consumer
goods giant, has pulled several expatriate staff out of Karachi, Pakistan.
Otherwise disruption had been minimal, it said.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 8, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

Aid workers still in Kabul prison

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: ATTACK ON AFGHANISTAN: MILITARY STRIKES & DIPLOMACY ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 91 words

DATELINE: BERLIN

The son of Muammar al Gaddafi, Libya's leader, claimed yesterday that
Afghanistan had asked for Libya's help in mediating the release of eight
international aid workers held in prison in Kabul since August, Hugh Williamson
reports from Berlin.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi told a German newspaper that Afghanistan's Taliban regime
had requested Libyan assistance before the September 11 terrorist attacks on the
US. Eight aid workers from Shelter Now, an international charity, including four
Germans, were arrested on August 3 for promoting Christianity.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 5, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Soco in link with Libyan oil interests

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK ; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 371 words

Soco International has formed an exploration joint venture with Libyan
interests, despite US sanctions barring the top Americans in the UK-quoted
company from dealing directly with the oil-rich North African state.

To overcome this political barrier, Soco has set up a subsidiary, Soco North
Africa, to take a 43 per cent stake in Odex Exploration, its joint venture with
Oil invest. The latter is a private Dutch holding company held 45 per cent by
the Libyan state oil company and trade bank.

After selling its Russian assets for Dollars 50m (Pounds 34m) in a deal
completed last week, Soco had signalled its intention to look for oil that was
cheaper and easier to exploit in North Africa and the Middle East. The switch
has been likely ever since the Toro group of Middle East energy investors became
Soco's largest shareholder, with 29 per cent, a couple of years ago.

Rui de Souza, the Portuguese head of the Toro investors group and a
non-executive director of Soco, said he would take charge of Soco North Africa's
interest in Odex, along with Soco's Canadian head of operations. This is
designed to screen Soco's two top Americans - Ed Story, the chief executive and
Roger Cagle, the chief financial officer - from involvement in Libya. Odex will
focus mainly on Libya "which is good for low risk exploration," said Mr de
Souza.

Mr de Souza said he thought it unlikely that Soco would take over any assets in
Libya belonging to four US oil companies forced to quit the North African
country by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 under sanctions.

Libya has since held the assets of Conoco, Amerada Hess, Marathon and Occidental
in trust, but recently gave the US companies a year to return or risk their
licences being given to others. In the new political context, "I don't think
there is really a deadline," for the US return, said Mr de Souza in an interview
last week.

Mr de Souza attributed Libya's interest in Soco to "technical experience" the UK
company had acquired working in difficult and inaccessible areas in Mongolia,
Yemen and Russia, and the fact that "we are a public source of capital". Odex is
the first upstream venture for Oilinvest, which is focused on downstream supply,
refining and marketing.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 5, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

US import curbs under fire

BYLINE: By ROGER BEALE - COMPILER

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK ; Pg. 44

LENGTH: 1101 words

The dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organisation meets in Geneva to
consider Canada's request for a WTO panel to investigate its complaint against
US duties on softwood timber, imposed after their bilateral pact expired this
year. The US may block the panel request today but cannot do so a second time.
WTO members are also due to adopt rulings against US restrictions on imports of
cotton yarn from Pakistan.

Terrorism talks

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Algerian president, is due to meet President George W.
Bush in the White House after attending the African-American business conference
in Philadelphia. Discussions are likely to centre on anti-terrorism measures -
several of the September 11 suicide hijackers are thought to have been Algerian.

Barcelona group

A Euro-Mediterranean conference of foreign ministers opens in Brussels under the
auspices of the Barcelona process, which seeks to promote co-operation between
the European Union and the countries of the Mediterranean basin. Representatives
of the Arab League are expected to attend and Libya has been invited to send an
observer, though it has not signed up to the 1995 Barcelona declaration on human
rights.

Healthy interest

About 400 healthcare policymakers and practitioners, including ministers from
the US, France, Mexico and the US, meet in Ottawa for a three-day conference on
measuring and improving health systems performance. According to the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the conference sponsor,
healthcare now costs member governments nearly 10 per cent of gross domestic
product on average and many countries are using performance indicators to try to
judge value for money.

Going with a bang

Britons celebrate Guy Fawkes, or Bonfire Night, to commemorate the failure of a
Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, by letting off
fireworks and burning effigies of Guido Fawkes, one of the conspirators.

Airline safety check

New precautions arising from the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US are
likely to be discussed when the air travel support and research organisations
the Flight Safety Foundation, the International Federation of Airworthiness and
the International Air Transport Association hold their annual safety seminar in
Athens (to November 8).

FT Survey

The environment.

TUESDAY 6

Spotlight on Ireland

European Union economics and finance ministers review Ireland's efforts to
control its budget and the economic consequences of the EU's ageing population
in what is likely to be a low-key monthly meeting, in Brussels. Didier Reynders,
the Belgian finance minister and representative of the EU's rotating presidency,
will report on the late Monday meeting of the 12-nation "eurogroup".

Building on success

At a ceremony at the historic citadel of Aleppo in Syria, the Aga Khan will
announce the nine recipients of the 2001 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the
world's largest architectural award, worth Dollars 500,000. The award was
established in 1977 "to identify and encourage building concepts that
successfully address the needs and aspirations of Islamic societies". This
year's awards range from a poultry farm school in Guinea to a hotel in Langkawi,
Malaysia.

Holiday

Tajikistan.

FT Survey

Private equity - the buy-out market.

WEDNESDAY 7

State of the world

The United Nations Population Fund releases its 2001 report on the state of the
world's population, this year focusing on the environmental impact of population
growth. UNFPA, which is based in New York, is projecting a 50 per cent increase
in population from 6.1bn in mid-2001 to 9.3bn by 2050, all of the growth coming
in developing countries. This growth will worsen pressure on water and food
supplies and exacerbate pollution, including global warming, the report says.

Concorde returns

British Airways is due to resume Concorde flights more than 15 months after the
supersonic airliner crashed near Paris, killing 113 people.

Holidays

Belarus; Russia.

FT Surveys

FT review of information technology; Qatar.

THURSDAY 8

Aegean partnership

Greek and Turkish businessmen hold a conference in Athens to promote bilateral
trade and investment. The meeting coincides with a working visit to Greece by
Ismail C em, Turkey's foreign minister, his second since the two Nato allies set
aside their quarrel over sovereignty in the Aegean sea in 1999. To highlight the
rapprochement, George Papandreou, the Greek foreign minister, will inaugurate an
exhibition of Mr C em's photography at the Benaki museum in Athens.

Going to Las Vegas

The annual conference of the Republican Governors Association is held in Las
Vegas (to November 10). The event comes two days after gubernatorial elections
across the US.

FRIDAY 9

WTO round talks

The World Trade Organisation opens its fourth ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar
(to November 13). The meeting is due to decide whether to launch new trade
liberalisation negotiations but the substance has been somewhat overshadowed by
security concerns, which have prompted many would-be participants to pull out.
Even so, ministers from the WTO's 142 member countries are expected to attend.
China and Taiwan will also be there to see ministers put the seal of approval on
their terms of entry.

Action for the poor

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has declared this a global
day of action. It is calling for reforms to benefit the poor in developing
countries and the right to good-quality education and health services.

Holiday

Pakistan.

FT Survey

Islamic banking, finance and investment.

SATURDAY 10

Australian poll

Australians vote in federal parliament elections. Analysts are expecting a tough
election likely to be decided by marginal seats. The opposition Labor party
needs only a 0.8 per cent national swing from the last election in

1998, or six more seats in the 148-strong lower house, to take power. At the
last election the Liberal party of prime minister John Howard won 64 seats and
formed a government with the National party.

UN leaders debate

The United Nations General Assembly holds its annual debate of world leaders in
New York (to November 16), delayed from its original start date of September 24.

FT Survey

Wealth management.

SUNDAY 11

Bulgarian election

Presidential elections are held in Bulgaria. Petar Stoyanov is standing for
re-election for a second term, though as an independent rather than the
candidate of the Union of Democratic Forces. He is opposed by the current
vice-president, Todor Kavaldjiev, and Georgi Parvanov, chairman of the Socialist
party. Compiled by Roger Beale Fax 44 20 7873 3196

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 5, 2001 Monday
USA Edition 1

Soco International

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 19 words

Soco International has formed an exploration joint venture with Libyan
interests, despite US sanctions. Page 18

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 27, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Investigators puzzle over likely source: CONTAMINATION: Expertise in biowarfare
has become dispersed over the past 15 years, reports Victoria Griffith

BYLINE: By VICTORIA GRIFFITH

SECTION: ATTACK ON AFGHANISTAN ANTHRAX & INVESTIGATION ; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 626 words

As anthrax contamination multiplies across America, the question that
investigators are being pressed to answer is: where does this stuff come from?

But scientists are warning that identifying the source of the anthrax used in
the US is complicated because cultures of even the refined forms of the bacteria
are so widely dispersed. Between 100 and 250 American research laboratories are
thought to hold small samples, another 40 worldwide.

At least 12 US universities, including Harvard University, the University of
Michigan and the University of Texas, store vials of the bacteria, which they
use for research. Military laboratories such as Los Alamos and Fort Detrick hold
stocks, as do a number of US hospitals.

Until the 1970s, just a few countries had biowarfare programmes. Britain had
been a leader in the area until it cancelled its programme in the 1950s.

The US, whose research was led out of Fort Detrick, had started testing pathogen
dispersal techniques over the Pacific ocean when the programme was suspended in
1969.

The Soviet Union aggressively continued research in the area until the country's
disintegration.

Over the past 15 years, however, biowarfare expertise has dispersed widely. Ken
Alibek, a former director of the Soviet biowarfare programme who later defected
to the US, has warned repeatedly that Soviet scientists, suddenly finding
themselves out of work, could have sold information and even samples to hostile
governments.

Those nations may have developed expertise without Soviet help, however. In
Iraq, Saddam Hussein's government is believed to have purchased its first
anthrax culture from a mail order house in US in 1986. The list of nations
believed to have some biowarfare expertise is disturbingly long: Russia, Syria,
Iraq, Iran, Libya, both Koreas, Israel, Egypt, Cuba, Taiwan, China, Romania,
Bulgaria, Pakistan, India and South Africa. The extensive international trade in
pathogens means many of these countries probably carry the same strains.

If the anthrax used in the US attacks was procured domestically, officials may
have a chance of tracking it down. Since 1986, the federal Centres for Disease
Control have overseen the pathogen's purchase.

According to federal protocol, both buyer and seller must be approved; a Dollars
15,000 fee is required to buy anthrax. Detailed information on the proposed
research must be provided, as well as the names of any employees coming in
contact with the substance. "There are strict rules in the US about the transfer
of such agents," says William Dietrich, a leading anthrax researcher at Harvard
Medical School. "You need to register and report the exchange of material."

The anthrax contained in the letter to Senator Tom Daschle was potent. A
chemical - most likely bentonite - was added to reduce the electric charge of
the particles and stop them sticking together. Such treatment adds to the
particles' ability to float in the air, a characteristic that makes them more
likely to be inhaled.

Anthrax experts say the bacteria are not dangerous or difficult to work with,
and manipulating them does not require sophisticated equipment. "The trick is to
make sure you keep quantities low and that you keep it wet," says Phil Hanna, an
anthrax expert at the University of Michigan.

Anthrax researchers say they have been deeply affected by the attacks. They have
been forced to beef up security in their laboratories, adding guards and
limiting access to the bacteria. They also worry about replenishing their
cultures in the future. "I don't know if I'll every be able to get another
anthrax sample," says Mr Hanna. "I understand the new scrutiny, but I hope our
ability to conduct research is not affected." That research has now taken on a
new urgency.

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 23, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

Russia's false promise: Robert Cottrell argues that long-term strategic
interests and internal pressures may undermine Vladimir Putin's pledges of
effective co-operation with the west and the anti-terrorist coalition:

BYLINE: By ROBERT COTTRELL

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 26

LENGTH: 1322 words

Russia has played its hand well in these first weeks of the war against
terrorism, almost all commentators agree. President Vladimir Putin has offered
just enough co-operation to be counted as a full member of the US-led coalition
against the Taliban but not so much as to involve his country directly in
fighting within Afghanistan.

Mr Putin's latest token of good intent has been to indicate his willingness to
reach a new agreement on strategic arms reductions that would replace the 1972
anti-ballistic missile treaty. Such an agreement, which is likely to take some
time to negotiate, would remove one obstacle to the US's deploying its planned
missile defence system.

In exchange for such moves, Mr Putin has banked assurances of support for
Russia's accelerated entry into the World Trade Organisation and sympathy from
the west for Russia's war inChechnya. He has respected what Sergei Rogov, a
Russian political scientist, calls "an iron rule of politics: even when you do
something in your own interests, always ask your partners to do something for
you".

The attack on Afghanistan serves Russia's interests because Russia fears the
rise of militant Islam in central Asia more than any other foreign threat. It
blames the Taliban for helping Chechen rebels, its worst domestic threat. By
attacking the Taliban, the US is doing what Russia would like to have done
itself.

There is a risk that fighting may spill over into Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. If
it does, Russia will feel bound to intervene. There is also a risk that the US,
having traded favours with the governments of central Asia to win air corridors
and forward bases, may raise its profile permanently in the region and challenge
Russian influence there. But those things are outside Russia's control. For
Russia, this has been the easy bit.

The difficult bit is that the west's war against terrorism looks unlikely to
stop at the borders of Afghanistan. The US has redefined its foreign policy to
make anti-terrorism the over-riding long-term priority. It has hinted that other
targets may follow once the Taliban have been subdued. Its allies in the long
term will be countries willing to go on supporting its war efforts.

Here Russia's problems start. There is no other readily imaginable instance in
which the interests and instincts of Russia will coincide with those of the west
as neatly as in Afghanistan.

Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria, for example, are all countries viewed
by the US as state sponsors of terrorism. Russia views them as friends. If the
US launches attacks in any of these countries, says Alexei Arbatov, a Russian
politician and defence expert, it will alienate Russia as well as the Arab
world. "Another confrontation will ensue - between the west on one hand and
China and Russia on the other," says Mr Arbatov.

Not everyone agrees with him. "If the US attacked a terrorist camp in Iran we
would not say a word - not a word," insists one retired Russian intelligence
officer. But it would be an extraordinary feat by Mr Putin if he were able to
enforce that degree of restraint on the Russian political establishment.
Russia's foreign intelligence service, which has few illusions about the world,
might understand his logic. But most of its politicians, generals and
businessmen would not.

Russia's ties to the rogue states are based partly on political calculation. By
cultivating such countries, Russia shows independence and gains influence. But
hard cash is also a big factor. The rogue states and the rest of the developing
world are potential markets for Russia's arms and nuclear technology.

While Mr Putin was in Brussels this month talking about closer relations with
Nato, the defence minister of Iran was visiting Moscow and signing an agreement
likely to bring Russia Dollars 1.5bn (Pounds 1.05bn) in arms contracts over the
next five years. Russia is also building an Dollars 800m nuclear reactor for the
Bushehr power station in northern Iran and hoping for a contract to build a
second one.

It can only get harder now for Russia to persuade the US that this sort of trade
is innocuous. But, equally, it is hard to imagine Russia putting a stop to it.
"We believe the arms trade is the sovereign right of any country," said Sergei
Ivanov, Mr Putin's closest aide, in March. "We do not intend to lose (markets)
because the US does not like some country," he said. Mr Putin has since promoted
Mr Ivanov to defence minister and named him Russia's co-ordinator for
international anti-terrorist operations.

Nor is it only policy differences that may drive a wedge between Russia and the
west. Russia will also face practical problems in any sustained war against
terror ism. Whatever the intentions of its government, the Russian state lacks
the capacity to deliver in vital areas.

Russia's war in Chechnya epitomises its problems. Mr Putin himself insists that
the Chechen war is a struggle against international terrorists. Yet the men
Russia identifies as terrorist leaders - including Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen
president, and the military commanders Shamil Basaev and Ibn-ul Khattab - have
operated for years under the nose of the Russian army.

This may be a failure of Russian intelligence, or of the army's capacity to make
use of the intelligence it is given. But either way it casts doubt on Russia's
ability to help the west catch terrorists elsewhere.

The physical devastation of Chechnya also makes horribly clear that pinpoint
strikes, sparing innocent civilians in the way modern anti-terrorist warfare
demands, are scarcely the Russian military's strong suit. There are no official
figures for civilian casualties in Chechnya over the years but they certainly
run into the tens of thousands. Therefore it may be no great loss to the western
effort that Russia is offering no troops for the war against terrorism, even
when the enemy is a common one such as the Taliban. Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of
the Russian general staff, dismissed that idea publicly before the US even
asked.

As a non-combatant overseas, Russia can make its contribution on the home front.
But here, too, the outlook is mixed. The fight against terrorism demands
sophisticated monitoring of communications, people and financial transactions.
The aim is to detect and prevent. But unless Russia's dozen or so secret
services are radically different from more visible branches of its public
services, they are poorly funded, poorly motivated, poorly managed and poorly
equipped.

They can also be bought and apparently sold fairly readily. "Officers of the
secret services are forced to seek additional work and, deliberately or not,
they make use of the operational capacities of their respective secret services
to resolve their own financial problems," said Nikolai Ryzhak, formerly a top
officer in military counter-intelligence, in a recent news-paper interview.

As for the policing of financial transactions, Russia's laws against
money-laundering are "clearly inadequate", Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister,
said last week. They will be strengthened but it is hard to see how any laws can
be made to stick as long as Russia has more than 1,000 licensed banks and little
in the way of banking supervision. Offshore companies and anonymity are the rule
in all large financial transactions. Indeed, the biggest deterrent to
money-laundering in Russia may well be the general lack of trust in the banking
system, which leads even the legitimately rich to hide cash elsewhere.

These limitations, practical and political, Mr Putin doubtless wants to change.
But change for the better is a slow process in Russia, especially when it
challenges the conservative instincts of the political establishment. "Russia
will have to be dragged screaming into rapprochement (with the west)", says
Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika Foundation, a think-tank. Can the west
trust Russia? Online discussion, www.ft.com/putinforum

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 20, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

'Nothing to hide' at Milan Islamic centre named as al-Qaeda's European base
SUSPECTS:

BYLINE: By FRED KAPNER

SECTION: ATTACK ON AFGHANISTAN INVESTIGATION ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 384 words

DATELINE: MILAN

From the outside there are no more hints that it is a Muslim centre for prayer
than there are indications that it is, according to the US Treasury, "the main
al-Qaeda station house in Europe". On the ground floor, there is an ill-lit
counter where a few men silently eat food served from a kitchen window. A
cramped grocery with one freezer full of chickens, a refrigerator and a counter
for honey-dipped cakes is tucked next to a stairwell.

Upstairs, there is a spacious prayer room, a room for cleansing feet, a store
for the sale of video cassettes and the Koran and a television room where half a
dozen men watch the al-Jazeera television channel or read Arabic newspapers.

Despite the suspicious glances of most at the centre when faced with a stranger,
Shaari Abdel Hamid, director of the institute, is anything but wary. The
54-year-old, an Italian citizen from Libya who came to study here 34 years ago,
says he and his institute have nothing to hide. But he makes a clear distinction
between the centre and the hundreds of people who come for prayer each Friday.

"That does not mean there might not be some people who are in some way linked to
illegality. But I can't know them. We are not a gentleman's club where people
sign in," says Mr Hamid. He says he did not know the two men arrested last week
in Milan on suspicion that they were linked to al-Qaeda.

Mr Hamid says the Euros 2,500 (Dollars 2,275, Pounds 1,570) monthly rent for the
institute is paid for with donations gathered during Friday prayers, and with
income from the restaurant and grocery store. The institute occasionally
receives Korans from Saudi Arabia but has never had any financial connections
with the country.

Enough money is also raised to support the institute's imam, Abu Emad, and his
family, according to Mr Hamid.

Imam Emad, a portly, baby-faced man, was imprisoned for six months in 1995 when
Italian police arrested 63 Egyptians in Milan suspected of being part of a
terrorist group. They were all released for lack of proof.

Italian police have kept the institute under observation since it was opened in
1988, Mr Hamid said, and it is quite likely that the secret services of Egypt,
Syria, Algeria and Tunisia have spies circulating at the institute and the two
other Muslim centres of prayer in Milan.

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 18, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

Multi-utility services and a square white box INTERVIEW FRANCO TATO, ENEL CHIEF
EXECUTIVE:

BYLINE: By JAMES BLITZ

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE EUROPE ; Pg. 29

LENGTH: 714 words

DATELINE: ROME

Sitting in his plush office in the centre of Rome, Franco Tato, Enel chief
executive, starts talking about his "secret weapon".

For the past five years, Mr Tato, one of Italy's most colourful and
controversial business leaders, has been turning the huge state-owned
electricity giant into a multi-utility that also provides services in diverse
sectors such as telecommunications. "The box on this desk is critical to the way
we will deliver these services," he says.

The square white box is a digital electricity meter which will replace the
old-fashioned meters that have been sitting in some 29m Italian households for
decades. "From January, we will be installing 1m of these meters every month in
Italian homes at a total cost of Euros 1.8bn (Dollars 1.6bn)," he says.

Mr Tato will not say too much about what services he will provide. But his
multi-utility strategy has been much discussed by industry analysts.

Enel, which is 68 per cent owned by the Italian state, is the country's main
generator and distributor of electricity. Its Wind-Infostrada subsidiary has
also become Italy's second-biggest integrated telecommunications group. But in
some areas - such as its ambition to be a leading distributor of water services
- Enel has made limited headway.

This week, however, Mr Tato pulled off one important achievement: in gas
distribution. On Tuesday, Enel bought 40 per cent of Gruppo Camuzzi for Euros
434m from a Rotterdam-based holding company Mill Hill, with an option to buy the
remaining 60 per cent by the end of next year.

The move may seem modest. But Enel has been stealthily buying up more local gas
distribution companies and has purchased more than a dozen in the past year.
This means it is now the second largest gas distributor in Italy after Eni
subsidiary Italgas.

"We have more or less delivered to the market the pledge that we made to acquire
2m gas customers by 2005," says Mr Tato, drawing on a cigar. "And we are doing
it a little faster than we had promised."

Mr Tato has been determined to diversify Enel's operations for a long time. The
liberalisation of the Italian electricity market two years ago forced Enel to
sell off a chunk of its generating capacity, reducing earnings before interest,
tax, depreciation and amortisation by some Euros 2.8bn a year. The group
therefore had to hunt for alternative sources of revenue.

Mr Tato also took the view that the company would achieve limited returns by
acquiring power companies outside Italy, given the risks and the investment
costs.

Enel recently bought Spanish electricity company Viesgo for Euros 2.14bn. "But
generally speaking, we have chosen not to go around the world buying up
electricity assets."

Above all, however, Mr Tato believes that there are significant cost savings to
be made if Enel becomes a player in both electricity and gas. "The two are very,
very close," he says.

First, Enel will now be able to deliver combined gas and electricity services to
some 2m customers. "That means that you can have one call centre, one customer
base and we write one invoice for both services," he says.

Second, Enel - which uses natural gas to generate electricity - is now better
placed to reduce its cost of fuel. When it fully acquires Camuzzi, Enel will end
up procuring a total of 13bn cubic metres of gas a year. It wants to raise that
to 16bn cubic metres by 2005-2006 as it continues converting electricity
generation plants to more efficient combined cycle gas turbines.

The expansion into gas procurement is well under way. The group has already
signed contracts with Algeria, Libya and Russia for gas procurement through
pipelines.

It has signed a contract with Spanish group Gas Natural to build a gas
liquefication plant in Qatar. It is also seeking permission to build at least
one of three gasification plants in Italy (in Vado Ligure, Muggia and Taranto),
and is beginning negotiations with Algerian group Sonatrach for the building of
a new gas pipeline to the Italian coast.

The only note of concern is that the Italian treasury may ask Enel to pay up a
"special dividend" this year in order to help allay Italy's budget deficit
problems. "We are neutral on the subject," he says.

"But such a dividend . . . would simply leave less money to be spent on
investment."

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 18, 2001 Thursday
USA Edition 2

Trade can fight terrorism: The approval of fast-track negotiating authority
would help to raise living standards among the world's poor, s:

BYLINE: By DAVID HALE

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 823 words

Many congressional Democrats resent the Bush administration's attempt to pursue
"fast-track" trade negotiating authority at a time of national emergency. They
are reluctant to make compromises on trade policy comparable with the ones they
may accept on tax and spending policy in order to cope with the war against
terrorism. But the administration is correct to link trade policy to the war
against terrorism, for two reasons.

First, there is a significant risk that the war could push the global economy
into recession. US consumers have become very cautious: the savings rate has
more than quadrupled since June. Companies are reluctant to invest when they are
uncertain about both the outlook for final demand and their future spending on
security. As with the pollution control expenditures of the 1970s, they could be
compelled to spend large sums on projects detrimental to profits and
productivity.

Furthermore, the US Customs Service has been carrying out the policy agenda of
the anti-globalisation movement by significantly inhibiting imports to the US at
the Canadian and Mexican borders, at airports and at the docks. As merchandise
imports are now equivalent to 36 per cent of the goods producing share of gross
domestic product, there could be a wave of inventory liquidation during the
fourth quarter, equivalent to 3-4 per cent of GDP.

Many Wall Street economists and media pundits are worried that the war against
terrorism could significantly retard globalisation. A decision by Congress to
enact fast-track trade negotiating authority for the president would have a
positive impact on global business confidence by demonstrating that the
terrorists cannot stop the globalisation process. A defeat, by contrast, would
reinforce current pessimism in the corporate sector and financial markets.

The second reason why Congress should enact fast-track trade negotiating
authority is to promote the creation of a global economy that will reduce the
likelihood of terrorism. The primary culprits in the tragic events of September
11 appear to be terrorists hostile to the US because of its traditional support
for Israel and its emergence as the world's superpower.

America's extraordinary success is the object of both envy and resentment.
Indeed, it has come at a time of unprecedented levels of income inequality and
poverty in the world. In the poorest countries, for example, people have incomes
of Dollars 100-Dollars 200 a year while in North America and western Europe per
capita annual incomes are Dollars 20,000-Dollars 30,000.

This huge income gap is not the sole force encouraging terrorism in the modern
world but it is an important contributing factor. Income inequality is a
particularly serious problem in the Middle East because most of the governments
in the region have done little to promote economic development and raise living
standards via foreign trade and investment. The rulers of Iraq, Syria, Libya,
Sudan and Afghanistan are obsessed with ideology and are indifferent to the
plight of their own people.

The great challenge today is to raise the living standards of the world's poor
and integrate them into the global economic system. True, there is a role for
international aid programmes to help bolster public investment and social
services in the poorest countries. But aid by itself cannot produce the economic
growth essential to creating a broad improvement in living standards.

The primary engine to achieve this is trade. Many developing countries in Asia,
Latin America and even Africa have achieved huge gains in real income during the
past three or four decades by becoming active participants in the global economy
through trade.

Trade has also played an important role in encouraging the spread of democracy
to the developing countries. As incomes rose in countries such as South Korea,
Taiwan and Thailand, people demanded an end to military rule and the
establishment of democratic forms of government. China's entry into the World
Trade Organisation is leading to such significant changes in its economy that
its political system will also become more open.

If the US is to offer the world's poor people any hope for material progress and
improving living standards, it has to set an example of openness by means of
policies that promote trade.

The events of September 11 were a profound tragedy in human terms but we should
now try to turn them into an opportunity for overcoming the protectionist and
isolationist political forces that have become so powerful in Washington in
recent years.

Either the US can promote an open global economy supportive of rising living
standards for all, or it can run the risk that terrorism will be arecurring form
of revenge by people who feel alienated and left behind by the tide of human
progress. Given the stakes, can there be any doubt which is the preferable
option?

The writer is chief global economist at Zurich Financial Services

LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 4, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

'Don't be scared into buying gas masks' BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL THREATS:

BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER PARKES

SECTION: FIGHT AGAINST TERROR POLITICS ; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 194 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

US citizens "should not be scared into buying gas masks" or taking similar
measures to protect themselves from biological or chemical terror attacks, Tommy
Thompson, health and human services secretary, said yesterday.

"There is nothing we know of that would warrant such actions," he told a Senate
appropriations subcommittee assembled to assess preparedness.

However, Mr Thompson acknowledged deficiencies in the US preparedness for
biological or chemical attacks.

With only 750 Federal Drug Administration inspectors to cover 55,000 food
preparation sites, the food supply chain was clearly vulnerable, he said.

But the greatest need was to co-ordinate public health services at federal,
state and local level. "Public health is a national security issue, and must be
treated as such," he said.

George Whiteside, a Harvard professor and 10-year veteran of the Defence Science
Board, which advises the Department of Defence, concurred with Mr Thompson, but
strove to dispel "scepticism" about the seriousness of biological threats.

According to government officials, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Libya all have
active chemical or biological warfare programmes.

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 1, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Sanctions aid the decline of Muslim states

BYLINE: By IRFA MIAN

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ; Pg. 26

LENGTH: 320 words

From Irfan Mian.

Sir, Martin Wolf makes the rudimentary error of confusing Islam the religion
with "Islamic countries" in "The economic failure of Islam" (September 26).

Readers will not be surprised to learn that material advancement is not the
central tenet of any world religion, and Islam is no exception.

One does not use a ruler with which to measure the volume occupied by a liquid.
Islamic supremacy from its inception up to the period of European colonisation
is undoubtedly a paradise lost for many Muslims, but notions of "democracy",
"sexual equality" and "law-governed states" do not contradict the teachings of
Islam.

Leaders in Islam are instructed to conduct their affairs on the basis of
Shura(consultation) and Ijma (consensus), while not only sexual but racial
equality are enshrined in the Koran. Individual and social responsibility and
duties are stressed in the Islamic legal system that is underpinned by the Koran
and Shariah.

The suggestion that Islam does not make it incumbent to establish a law-governed
state is a blistering error and gross mutation of the truth. The colonial
experiment predates the industrial revolution and not vice versa as the writer
suggests.

There are numerous reasons for the economic decline; not least the ignorance,
arrogance and political cunning with which the colonisers conducted their daily
business of resource extraction, while clipping the wings of free trade in their
Muslim colonies.

Muslim-governed India was only allowed to trade with her colonial master while
economic blockades of Mindanao in the southern Philippines turned it from the
most advanced to the most backward economic region in the Philippines.

I assume that Mr Wolf is equally vociferous in condemning sanctions on Iraq,
Iran, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, because this is surely driving the
Islamic world further down the economic tubes.

Irfan Mian, 1 Jermyn Street, London SW1

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 26, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Sudden move to centre stage gives Britain the chance to utilise its role:
Yesterday's events show the UK still has a part to play in the Middle East.
Brian Groom and Roula Khalaf report

BYLINE: By BRIAN GROOM and ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: ASSAULT ON AMERICA BRITAIN ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 612 words

A diplomatic coup in Iran, a row with Israel. Rarely in recent years has Britain
appeared such a central player in the Middle East.

Although its influence has declined since before the second world war, when it
was the colonial power in Palestine and had wide interests in the region,
yesterday's events provided evidence that Britain still has the chance to make
use of its limited role.

The row with Ariel Sharon, while not insignificant, was predictable. Israel,
having accused Jack Straw of "sticking a knife in its back" by visiting one of
its most vehement enemies, was ready to be outraged. Its fury was vented over
the foreign secretary's article for an Iranian newspaper.

Parallels were drawn with Robin Cook's visit in 1998, when there was Israeli
outrage when he want to Har Homa, a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem. But on
that occasion, Mr Cook was making a deliberate point to demonstrate displeasure
with expansion of Jewish settlements: yesterday's row was an unintended
consequence of attempting to repair relations with Iran.

"We've got to have our eye on the big picture here," said Menzies Campbell, the
Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman. "Jack Straw has won a very
considerable prize by getting the kind of response that he's got out of Iran
today."

By trying to win the support of a leading Islamic country for the international
coalition, Britain was seeking to deliver something that the US, which has had
no diplomatic representation since revolutionary guards occupied its Tehran
embassy in 1979, cannot. It was the result of a gradual thaw in UK-Iranian
relations since diplomatic links were restored in 1990.

Overall, Britain's role has declined, through the debacle of its Suez canal
invasion of 1956, its expulsion from Aden in the late 1960s, and its withdrawal
of forces from east of Suez in 1971. It has enjoyed good relations with Gulf
states, but the oil-fuelled contracts bonanza has come to an end.

Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle East programme at the Royal Institute of
International Affairs, sees a further problem: British foreign policy has become
globalised, paying more attention to Washington, the World Trade Organisation,
the Group of Eight industrialised nations and the European Union than to local
circumstances.

Britain has, however, followed a more nuanced Middle East policy than the US,
demonstrating perhaps a greater understanding of the complexity of the problems.

It has balanced a hard line on Iraq with more accommodating policies on Libya
and Iran. The resolution of the Lockerbie crisis and the resumption of
diplomatic ties with Iran were seen by UK officials as part of a broader policy
that seeks to distance it from the US and to limit anti-British sentiment in the
Arab world.

Arab public opinion is critical of Britain for maintaining United Nations
sanctions on Iraq and contributing to the suffering of ordinary citizens. But,
to the UK's benefit, the perception is tempered by a suspicion that the UK is
simply following the US lead.

As Arab public opinion turned against sanctions in recent years, Britain moved
to underline that its policies were not inherently anti- Arab. It played the key
role in convincing the US to accept a compromise on the Lockerbie trial - it was
finally held in a third country - a move that paved the way for re-establishing
ties with Libya. And it has tried to engage in a resolution to the Sudan
conflict.

The European Union's constructive engagement with Iran, meanwhile, and the
distance the government of the Islamic Republic took from the religious edict on
Salman Rushdie, created an environment that allowed the thaw in relations with
Tehran.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 26, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

The economic failure of Islam: Muslim animosity towards the west has its roots
in an inability to respond effectively to centuries of financial progress

BYLINE: By MARTIN WOLF

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 1073 words

Why do they hate us so much? Along with the shock, anger and grief comes this
question. What makes men plan and execute an atrocity on the scale of September
11? To these questions, many offer two answers: their poverty and our policies.
Poverty fuels desperation; our policies stoke humiliation. Desperation and
humiliation breed terrorism. The answer is to end the poverty and change the
policies.

In its naive form, this view is implausible. The people who carried through this
attack are far from poor. Many originate in Saudi Arabia, a relatively wealthy
oil state. Equally, the west can do little to assuage such enemies, short of
disappearing from the region, if not from the world. Osama bin Laden and his
associates wish to expunge the "crusader presence" from Islamic holy places and
restore the golden age of Islamic supremacy. The aim is not peace with Israel,
but its annihilation. By confirming the Israeli presence, a peace agreement
could as well increase the risk of terrorist attacks on western targets as
reduce it.

The humiliation and rage that spawn what President George W. Bush called
terrorist groups "of a global reach" are real. But they are the result of a
long-term historic failure, not of recent events. We are eating the fruit of
three centuries of bitterness between a dominant west and an enfeebled Islamic
world.

Western power and wealth have transformed or destroyed traditional patterns of
life everywhere. Yet nowhere has the rise of the west - of which the US is the
contemporary avatar and Israel a humiliating symbol - posed a bigger challenge
than for the world of Islam, for two reasons.

First, for a thousand years the Islamic world thought itself more powerful, more
economically advanced and more intellectually sophisticated than the Christendom
with which it contended. Second, western ideas of democracy, liberalism, sexual
equality and a law-governed state conflict with Islam's traditional practice.

In assessing the response to the western challenge, Anatole Lieven, a senior
associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, judges that "with
the exception of some of the oil-endowed Gulf states and - to a limited degree -
Turkey and Malaysia, every single Muslim country has failed to enter the
developed world".*

The position is grim. Last year, according to the World Bank, the average income
in the advanced countries was Dollars 27,450 (Pounds 18,800) (at purchasing
power parity), with the US on Dollars 34,260. Israel's income per head was
Dollars 19,320. Against this, the average income of the historic belt of Islamic
countries that stretches from Morocco to Bangladesh was Dollars 3,700. If one
ignores the special case of the oil exporters, not one had incomes per head
above the world average of Dollars 7,350.

Turn then to economic policy. According to World Audit's index of economic
freedom, the highest ranks (out of 155 countries) in 2001 were 42nd, for Kuwait,
and 48th, for Morocco. Most of the countries were ranked among the most
restrictive in the world (that is, in the ranks above 100). Again, in the
well-known Freedom House evaluation of political liberty, just five of these
countries (Bangladesh, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco and Turkey) were judged even
partly free. The rest were simply "not free". World Audit places six of these
regimes (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Sudan) among the
eight most politically repressive in the world.**

Western ideas of political organisation and economic policy have been resisted
or rejected. The countries of the Islamic belt are not just poor, but are
falling behind other developing countries. In 1950, Egypt and South Korea had
much the same standard of living. Today, South Korea's is almost five times as
high. Remarkably, India's standard of living is now almost half as high again as
Pakistan's.

The failure of the core countries of the Islamic world to match the industrial
revolution is not surprising. Apart from the political, social and ideological
differences from the west, they lacked fast-running water, coal and iron. Then
western imperialism entered the region, depriving it of the capacity for an
autonomous response. The last half century has been a different matter. If one
puts to one side the special case of Turkey, the principal attempts at
modernisation were made by socialist regimes, all of which have failed. Now the
region lives with the consequences of that failure in a resurgent fundamentalism
and the often repressive reaction of western-supported regimes.

In the words of Bernard Lewis, historian of the Islamic world, "Ultimately, the
struggle of the fundamentalists is against two enemies, secularism and
modernism. The war against secularism is conscious and explicit . . . The war
against modernity is for the most part neither conscious nor explicit, and is
directed against the whole process of change that has taken place in the Islamic
world in the past century or more."***

The desire for return to a pure form of religion is not new. But the call to a
purified faith has wider appeal today than before. Everywhere in the developing
world, people must respond to the intrusive impact of the ideas and the
prosperity of the western world, in general, and of the US, in particular. But
religion makes a difference to the nature of that response. A universal religion
with all-embracing political and social claims offers a lens on the world
different from that available to a Chinese or a Hindu. Most fundamentalists are
in no way terrorists, far from it. But they can offer a reason to die - or to
kill.

Western policymakers face harsh realities. They can try to make their countries
safer. They can act directly against the terrorist threat. They should try to
cajole Israel into a peace acceptable to the Palestinians, though that would not
end terrorism by those who believe the Jewish state should disappear. They can
also encourage political and economic liberalisation among their clients. But
the west cannot make the region rich or politically stable. It cannot secure an
accommodation between the traditions of Islam and the demands of the modern
world. All it can do is the best it can with the world that there is - and
endure.

* Strategy for Terror, Prospect, October 2001, www.prospect-magazine. co.uk **
www.worldaudit.org *** The Roots of Muslim Rage, The Atlantic, 1990,
www.theatlantic.com/issues/ 90sep/rage2 martin.wolf@ft.com

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 26, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Huge fall recorded by EMI

BYLINE: By PETER JOHN and RUTH SULLIVAN

SECTION: STOCK MARKETS LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE ; Pg. 50

LENGTH: 992 words

EMI plunged to its lowest level since 1988 yesterday after a shock profits
warning.

The company said that since July, when it highlighted "difficult and
unpredictable music market conditions", there had been "a marked deterioration
in these conditions".

It added that "our own trading in recorded music, particularly in the USA and
Latin America, had been weaker than anticipated".

In an attempt to point out how undervalued the company was, it also told some
analysts that its music publishing assets were worth more than the company's
market capitalisation.

The shares fell 116 to 214p, easily the biggest decline among the UK's 350
largest quoted companies, on turnover of 30m as investors fretted about the
security of the dividend.

There was additional pressure from overseas. AOL Time Warner came under pressure
late on Monday after the media giant warned that its full-year cash earnings
would be below its earlier estimates as the advertising market worsened
following the US terrorist attacks. Oil stocks BP and Shell Transport slipped as
the oil price continued its downward spiral despite a statement by Libya's oil
minister that OPEC would cut production if the oil price stayed below Dollars 22
a barrel.

Fears about the impact of the terrorist attacks on the US and the risk of a
recession as a result combined with concern about last night's US inventory
data. The market expected a build of 1m barrels after July's inventories slipped
to their lowest level since March.

There was also broker caution. CSFB upgraded BP to "buy" from "hold" but cut its
long-term growth assumption for the sector to 3 per cent a year from 4 per cent.
Deutsche Bank reiterated its "neutral" stance on the sector, saying it was too
soon to move to an overweight position. BP fell 3 to 509 1/2p. Shell was off 223
at worst but rallied to end a net 1 1/2 higher at 466 1/2p.

The continued trickle of share buy-backs reflected a perception by some
companies that the market was starting to bottom out.

Barclays buys back

Barclays which started its share buy-back programme on Friday, bought on another
300,000 at Pounds 16.16 yesterday. The shares lifted 120 to Pounds 17.40 with
support from Merrill Lynch.

Canary Wharf bought back 300,000 shares at 452p a share, Marks & Spencer 750,000
at 237p and Diageo 1m at 671p - all through Cazenove.

Celltech jumped 54 1/2 to 628p as JP Morgan joined the brokers turning more
positive on the biopharmaceutical group by upgrading it to "buy" from "hold"
with a fair value target of 909p. It said the shares had fallen 45 per cent in
10 weeks.

This meant the shares would be at fair value if sales from the group's
rheumatoid arthritis drug, were only Pounds 500m by 2008, and revenues were
ignored from the group's attention deficit drug, its restenosis treatment and
its asthma antibody. The arthritis treatment, soon to enter Phase III trials, is
estimated to have peak sales more than Pounds 1bn.

Daily Mail & General Trust rebounded 55 to 558p as a reassuring trading
statement gave the shares a chance to recoup previous heavy losses triggered by
recent events in the US. Analysts, however, cautioned that the gains may be
short-lived given the thin volume and several earnings downgrades.

BSkyB added 17 at 617p as it was announced that Deutsche Bank was warehousing
the Vivendi stake which has been overhanging the stock.

Scottish Power gained 25 to 403p as Goldman Sachs raised its stance on the group
to "market outperformer" from "market performer" and reiterated its 500p price
target. It said the utility was oversold against its low-case valuation of 415p
after the 25 per cent absolute fall in its shares since its recent profit
warning.

International Power gained 11 3/4 to 217p after Lehman Brothers upgraded it to
"buy" from "market perform".

Fraser forward

Department store House of Fraser gained 4 to 82 1/2p after the retailer reported
that first-half losses had narrowed and it had already made a strong start to
the second half. First half losses reduced from Pounds 6.6m to Pounds 1.5m, a
better performance than analysts' expectations.

The company said it did not need to reduce its forecasts after the US terrorist
attack and was confident of a strong outcome for the full year. The group said
like-for-like sales were 4.7 per cent higher in the eight weeks up to 23
September. House of Fraser is not so exposed to foreign tourists as other
department stores and has held up better than Debenhams and Selfridges.

"We need to see returns from the investment in the new stores now", said David
Stoddart of Teather & Greenwood. The broker kept its recommendation of "hold".
The shares closed with a gain of 1 1/2 to 80p. Selfridges lost 5 to 268p, while
Debenhams held at 353p.

The leisure sector brightened with cruise company P&O Princess bouncing back 30
to 210p after a reassuring trading statement. Anticipating reduced demand from
North American passengers for cruises in the Indian Ocean, Middle East and
Africa, the company took the step of redeploying its ships. Shares are beginning
to regain some of the ground lost after the terrorist attack in the US. Before
the disaster they were trading at 360p.

Tour operator Airtours also staged a strong rally, climbing 26 to 156p after an
upgrade from "underperform" to "neutral" by WestLB Panmure. Analysts said that
they believed Airtours has acted rationally and already implemented plans to cut
summer capacity for 2002 significantly. The leisure team at Deutsche Bank
reiterated its "buy" recommendation.

Shares in no-frills airline easyJet also gained 49 to 297 1/2p after Monday
evening's trading statement and bookings were said to be back to normal. Brokers
were said to be upgrading recommendations.

Low-cost airline Ryanair gained 34 1/2 to 508p after it said that its bookings
had been largely unaffected by the US terrorist attacks and sees no reason to
alter its forecasts. Regular UK equities updates at www.ft.com/equities

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 26, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Sliding price of crude may trump Venezuelan president's oil ace: Chavez's
flirtation with countries deemed rogue states by the US is returning to haunt
him, writes Andy Webb-Vidal:

BYLINE: By ANDY WEBB-VIDAL

SECTION: EUROPE & THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 677 words

As US foreign policy polarises into the classification of governments as allies
or enemies in President George W. Bush's declared "war on terrorism", scrutiny
in Latin America is falling on Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

Like all other Latin American presidents, Mr Chavez has unequivocally condemned
the hijack attacks on the US and pledged his government's commitment to fighting
terrorism.

But his past flirtation with leaders of countries deemed "rogue states" by the
US, his ties with Arab oil nations uneasy about the US military build-up, plus a
string of events that have strained relations with Washington are returning to
haunt him.

"This may strengthen the position of those in the State Department who see
Chavez as a problem," said Michael Shifter, analyst with the Inter-American
Dialogue. "But he can hold the hardliners at bay by keeping oil flowing. He
still has the ace."

Washington was angered last year when the Venezuelan leader visited Iraq's
Saddam Hussein as part of a tour to invite heads of state of the Organisation of
Petroleum Exporting Countries to a summit in Caracas.

Jose Rangel, the foreign minister at the time, rebuffed criticism from the State
Department, insisting that, "be it on a skateboard or on a camel", Mr Chavez was
going to Baghdad.

In August, the US was again irked when Mr Rangel, now defence minister, asked
the permanent US military mission in Venezuela to vacate its offices in the
military headquarters in Caracas, saying its presence was an anachronism from
the cold war.

The tone for Mr Chavez's uneasy relationship with the US was set shortly after
he took office two years ago when he released an open letter expressing
solidarity with, but not condoning the actions of, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the
convicted terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal, who is now serving a life
sentence in France for three murders.

Domestic critics have also been concerned about Mr Chavez's "neutral" stance
towards Colombia's two main rebel groups, both on the State Department's
terrorist blacklist.

Latin American diplomats say the US has avoided an open confrontation with Mr
Chavez in part because of Venezuela's importance as a major oil supplier to the
US. However, the tolerance displayed by Washington is likely to diminish, they
say.

Since the attacks, Mr Chavez has made clear that, while he will guarantee
Venezuelan oil supplies to the US, he "could not sign a blank cheque" to endorse
a military campaign that bypassed the United Nations, echoing the view of
several other countries.

Diplomats are now watching for confirmation of whether the Venezuelan leader
will proceed with a scheduled visit in October to Libya's Colonel Muammer
Gadaffi.

"Venezuela is significant to the US in terms of energy security, in that sense
Chavez has indicated what side he's on," said Adolfo Salgueiro, an international
relations analyst.

"But if he goes to Libya, even though he has every right to, whether the
Americans like it or not, it would send a very negative signal at a time like
this."

Analysts warn the hardening of US foreign policy could force Mr Chavez to steer
a narrower channel between behaving in the eyes of Washington and preserving
good relations with fellow Opec members, such as Iran, which is warning against
an over-zealous US military campaign.

Clues to the shifting alliances among Opec members could emerge today, when oil
ministers meet to ponder the deteriorating prospects for crude oil demand and to
review output quotas.

Key to the outcome will be the role of Ali Rodriguez, Opec's secretary-general,
who will try to prevent heightened political tensions between members from
allowing them to agree on how Opec deals with a looming global recession.

Mr Chavez, analysts say, now needs the diplomatic skills of Mr Rodriguez, his
former energy minister, more than ever before.

But if oil supplies from Arab countries escape disruption by the impending
US-led military campaign, and crude prices continue to slide, oil may no longer
be the ace in the hands of the Venezuelan leader.

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September 21, 2001 Friday
London Edition 2

Europe's dealings with US foes may bear fruit FOREIGN RELATIONS:

BYLINE: By JAMES BLITZ and VICTOR MALLET

SECTION: ASSAULT ON AMERICA EUROPE RESPONDS ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 446 words

DATELINE: PARIS and ROME

Europe's willingness to court America's enemies around the world has long been a
source of irritation in Washington.

Italy has befriended Libya, Germany has cautiously embraced Iran and France has
gone as far as it can towards establishing a relationship with Iraq without
breaking UN sanctions.

France has even welcomed senior members of the internationally unrecognised
Taliban regime of Afghanistan on three occasions at the foreign ministry in
Paris, although it insists the visits were of a purely humanitarian nature.

These links between European governments and countries shunned by the US as past
or present supporters of terrorism will come under intense scrutiny as President
George W. Bush builds an international coalition to avenge last week's attacks
in New York and Washington.

But Europe is unlikely to abandon its new friends simply to show solidarity with
the US in the aftermath of the attacks.

Instead, it is Washington that will probably reassess some of its relationships
in Asia and the Middle East. The US has already softened its stance towards
Pakistan - the gateway to Afghanistan - and realises that it shares with Iran,
another neighbour of Afghanistan, a potentially fruitful hostility towards the
Taliban.

"It's absolutely fascinating to see the speed with which the political map is
being redefined," says Francois Heisbourg, who heads the Foundation for
Strategic Research in Paris.

Europe's current interest in oil-producing countries such as Iran and Libya is
largely commercial. European companies - including Nokia of Finland and France's
TotalFinaElf - are more than happy to take advantage of America's refusal to
deal with Tehran or Tripoli.

The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, recently renewed, allows the US president to
punish foreign companies that invest large sums in oil or gas development, but
it has not deterred some European investors.

Eni, the Italian energy group, is the latest company to risk falling foul of the
law, and it was notable that Vittorio Mincato, Eni's chief executive, leapt to
the defence of the Libyans shortly after the terror attacks in the US.

In the end, some of Washington's worst enemies may - with the help of their
European friends - turn out to be part of the solution if they can convince
everyone they are no longer involved in terrorism themselves.

"The Libyans are not friends of the Islamists," says Mr Heisbourg. "Gadaffi can
be called all sorts of bad things but a religious fundamentalist he is not.

"The same is true of Syria. And it can't hurt that the French and the Germans
have maintained normal political and economic relations with Iran." Additional
reporting by James Blitz in Rome

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 20, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 4

US police alert to Muslim victims of fear and loathing: Arab communities suffer
backlash in spite of official support, writes Nancy Dunne:

BYLINE: By NANCY DUNNE

SECTION: BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION ; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 774 words

Muslim and Arab communities in the US, still grieving over the events of terror
last week, are also dealing with hundreds of assaults, bomb threats and
harassment.

Many Muslim women are frightened to leave their homes with their heads covered
and children are scared to go to school.

But the communities have been heartened by what they see as unstinting support
from the Bush administration, Congress and the media. They were particularly
encouraged by President George W. Bush's visit on Monday to the Islamic Center
of Washington, where he denounced those seeking reprisals as "representatives of
the worst of humankind".

The police have been swift to launch investigations into attacks on Muslims in
the past week and the Department of Justice is preparing prosecutions for hate
crimes within the next two weeks, according to James Zogby, chairman of the Arab
American Institute in Washington.

But the authorities are under unprecedented pressure to clamp down on terrorist
activity, and Arab and Muslim Americans fear that there are already signs of
over-zealousness and erosion of their civil liberties.

Stanley Cohen, a Jewish civil rights lawyer, who defends many Muslims, said the
Federal Bureau of Investigation had intimidated worshippers at mosques and
entered their homes "at all hours of the day and night".

"When they are less than co-operative, they have called in (the immigration
service) to investigate them," he said. "We have seen an unprecedented increase
in profiling." He noted that the FBI and local police have been picking out cars
driven by Arabs, stopping them as they come in and out of Washington and
questioning the drivers.

He claims that illegal seizures of property by the police have rocketed and a
large number of "material witnesses" have been jailed.

John Ashcroft, the attorney general, has vowed to protect the civil rights of
"everyone". Officials from the state and justice departments have been regularly
meeting Arab and Muslim representatives to hear their concerns.

The Civil Rights Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have
dispatched directives to their local offices to make efforts against
discrimination against Arabs and Muslims.

The administration is committed to "smoking out" the terrorists. The Justice
Department has announced rules governing detention that would allow immigrants
to be held indefinitely during a national emergency, instead of the current
48-hour duration. A broad package of anti-terrorism legislation will be sent to
Congress to give the Justice Department powers to arrest immigrants.

"It's starting," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic
Relations. "The environment of hysteria will lead to the curtailment of civil
liberties."

His group has received notice of more than 400 instances of harassment and
assaults against Muslims.

Incidents of over-reaching police tactics could hinder the efforts to include
Muslims and Arab governments in an anti-terrorism coalition. The FBI raided and
"tore up" the apartment of the son of a prominent Saudi, Mr Zogby said, before
returning, twice, to conduct further questioning.

Local police agencies have also allegedly been "over-zealous". Driving home late
at night recently, Mr Zogby recognised an elderly Pakistani with a white beard
backed against a wall by five or six police cars.

The FBI declined to comment last night on claims about over-zealousness by the
law enforcement agencies.

Because of the nature of the challenge and the response that is planned (against
terrorism)," the US cannot afford to allow such incidents, said Clovis Maksoud,
former Arab League ambassador to the UN and the US. It was important not to
reinforce "elements in the Muslim world" already opposed to US policies.

The administration's sensitivity to Muslim and Arab concerns comes after years
of organising with many groups lobbying in Washington. The Council on American
Islamic Relations was founded in 1992 by two people to counter stereotyping of
Muslims by the American media and pop culture. It now has branches around the
country.

Most Muslim commentators have praised the sensitivity of US television anchors -
particularly Ted Koppel, who frequently urged viewers not to confuse Muslims and
Arabs with the terrorists.

But, said Afshin Molavi, a writer on Iran, some pundits have used incendiary
language. Bill O'Reilly, a talk show host on cable TV, urged the bombing of
Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, saying: "If they don't like it, they can eat sand."

Most Muslim and Arab American leaders say they want what they seem least likely
to get: a serious discussion of the roots of terrorism.

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September 20, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

The voice of Europe

SECTION: LEADER ; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 441 words

Europe has displayed an impressive discipline in its response to the terrorist
assault against the US. After an outpouring of sympathy came a powerful
expression of collective resolve when Nato invoked article 5 stating that an
attack on one member was an attack against the alliance.

Now comes the hard part. The intense diplomacy across the Atlantic this week
underlines concern in European capitals about how the Bush administration
intends to manage the next phase of the crisis. A military response is
inevitable. But the timing, the targets - and above all the objectives - in the
new war on terrorism remain unclear.

Tony Blair, who follows Jacques Chirac to Washington, will naturally want to
influence the administration's deliberations. Britain, France and the rest of
the European Union want to know what the international coalition against
terrorism is ultimately for. Is it a broad alliance with the narrow objective of
punishing the perpetrators, or does President George W. Bush favour a narrow
US-led coalition with the broad objective of a war against terrorism around the
globe?

Mr Bush's Wyatt Earp rhetoric gives the impression of a trigger-happy president.
But his pledge to bring Osama bin Laden, the fugitive Saudi terrorist, to
justice "dead or alive" is more geared to an American audience bent on revenge.
In practice, the White House seems more circumspect. As Mr Bush told
Congressional leaders: there is not much point in dispatching Dollars 2m
missiles to destroy an empty Dollars 10 tent.

Europe's leaders should reinforce the case for proceeding carefully - but not to
the point of ruling out any action that could risk civilian casualties. The
issue should not be whether the retaliation should be proportionate, but whether
it is precise if it comes to commando strikes against Mr bin Laden's camps in
Afghanistan.

This will be the first phase of the war on terrorism. The second will be a wider
onslaught on the regimes which support terrorism as well as their financial
networks. This will have far-reaching repercussions since it could include
countries such as Libya, Iran and Iraq. Europe will want to have a say in this
second phase; but EU leaders must realise that their influence will depend on
their commitment to the first military phase of the war.

The international coalition will come under increasing strain in coming weeks.
But if European countries break rank, they cannot expect a fair hearing in
Washington. Equally Mr Bush should take note of the efforts which EU governments
are taking this week to strengthen counter-terrorism. For this is the arena
where ultimately the war can be won.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 18, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

The question for all: to fly or not to fly?: BUSINESS TRAVEL: After last week's
attacks on New York and Washington, travellers face a mix of fear and
frustration. Some may decide to stay at home, says Amon Cohen:

BYLINE: By AMON COHEN

SECTION: INSIDE TRACK ; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 1516 words

At the time of the Gulf war in 1991 vast numbers of travellers abandoned flying.
Forthe first time since the start of the jet age air traffic volumes fell in
absolute terms.

As the shock of last Tuesday's hijacks sinks in and the White House plans its
response, the Gulf war offers the best guide to what changes are in store for
airlines and travellers. But there is an important difference. The war between
Iraq and the US-led coalition posed theoretical risks for air travellers; the
terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon used passenger
aircraft as weapons of mass destruction.

Some indications of the long-term effects of such destructive hijacks in US air
space and the declarations of military intent from the White House are already
apparent in the form of shrunken schedules, massively increased and
time-consuming security measures and looming financial hardship, if not outright
bankruptcy, for even the largest airlines.

Impending military retaliation by US forces and their allies has led Control
Risks Group, the overseas security consultancy, to urge the cancellation of
travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Control Risks also recommends
postponement of non-essential travel to Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and
Gaza/West Bank, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan because of possible hostility from the local
population. Westerners should stay in touch with their embassies and consider
moving out of the vicinity of offices or homes near high-profile US targets.

Christopher Grose, Control Risks' director, warns travellers in these countries
to maintain a low profile. "Don't have luggage labels that identify your
nationality," he says. "Don't travel unnecessarily within the country either -
go in, do your business and leave. While you are there, keep away from known
meeting places for expats such as cafes and restaurants."

The company also lists a third category of 24 countries (see www.crg.com) in the
Middle East, Africa and Asia where there is no need to avoid travel but where
companies should heed advice from diplomats.

There are other ways to minimise risk. Whatever the destination, the National
Business Travel Association is warning travellers to increase levels of
preparation. Its tips include sharing details of itineraries with colleagues and
family, carrying two forms of identification - one on the traveller's person and
one in the luggage - carrying full travel documentation and medical information
and making sure mobile phones are fully charged.

The assumption behind this advice, of course, is that employees will not cease
travelling completely. However, the Business Travel Coalition, an advocacy group
for leading US purchasers of corporate travel, believes US companies will stop
flying internationally during any military campaign. "A lot of executives have
said they are not going to be caught outside the US as they were in the Gulf
war," says Kevin Mitchell, BTC's chairman. "The other message companies are
giving employees is that there is no pressure on them to travel if they feel
uncomfortable doing so."

Those who do travel will have to accept that checking in will become slower than
ever as baggage and body searches are stepped up. Recent time-saving innovations
such as check-in desks away from airports at hotels and other locations will be
scrapped.

Travel professionals are anxious that governments achieve a reasonable balance
between security and convenience, especially given that the September 11
hijackers did not carry anything illegal on board. "If you trebled the security
that we had last week, it would not solve the problem," says Mr Mitchell. "What
went wrong was a big gap in intelligence-gathering."

The importance of intelligence means that the security practices of El-Al, the
Israeli airline, may become the blueprint for other airlines. It is not just
rigorous searches that have kept Israel's flag-carrier free from hijacks since
1968; it is also the intensive, informed interrogation of all passengers,
minutely checking their identity, purpose of travel and documentation for any
suspicious signs. El-Al is not afraid to delay departure of an aircraft if it
has misgivings about an individual and wishes to question them further.

The check-in for El-Al flights is 150 minutes for economy class and 90 minutes
for business class, about 60 and 30 minutes longer respectively than normal for
travel to the Middle East.

Not every new security measure need slow down travel. There is now new impetus
for the introduction of hand- and retina-scanning techniques that airports and
immigration authorities have experimented with for years. Those who have
participated in these schemes, such as INSPass at several international US
airports, find them fast and reliable. The political faint-heartedness that has
hindered their introduction may now be overcome.

Despite such innovations, Kevin Iwamoto, the NBTA president, is among those who
believe travel will become far more time-consuming and less attractive.
"Business travel as we know it today is going to be transformed," he says.
"Companies have already been thinking about the value of travelling because of
economic conditions. Now they are really going to look at who should travel and
why. Companies will have to decide which types of travel are business-critical
for them." They are also likely to impose stricter limitations on the number of
employees who can travel on the same flight.

All this will promote alternatives to commercial air travel. Mr Mitchell
believes there will be a sizeable shift to the car for domestic US journeys
under 500 miles. There are even suggestions that the US may develop a good
high-speed rail network.

For international trips and others that must be made by air, companies may use
the savings from reduced travel volumes to spend more on trips that really
matter. In particular, full or part ownership of aircraft and business charters,
already on the increase in recent years, could become more popular still. The
time savings they offer in terms of reduced check-in times and access to
alternative airports will become even more pronounced.

Where people do not need or want to travel, video-conferencing is likely to
become more widely used. David Radcliffe, chief executive of worldwide travel
management company Business Travel International, says experience has shown that
it can replace certain types of travel, such as for internal meetings. However,
users quickly discover the limitations of video-conferencing as a means of
communication. "Business travel will continue to play an important part in the
cycle of doing business," says Mr Radcliffe. "You cannot shift the need for
people to meet other people."

How much the journeys that will have to be made will cost remains a matter of
conjecture. Some commentators have predicted that air fares will drop; others
that they will shoot up. In fact, the initial effect is likely to be a fall.
Fares were already softening as a result of falling demand. In last week's
outrages, United Airlines lost a Boeing 757 with 38 people on board and a 767
with 56 people. Capacity on both aircraft types is usually about 250. Now demand
will fall even more sharply. "Fares will fall in the short term because there is
too much capacity," says Mr Mitchell.

Ultimately, though, fares are likely to rise. "The costs of not being able to
carry cargo (on passenger flights), new security measures and increased
personnel costs will all be borne by customers," says Mr Mitchell. Business
travellers will be hit hard, he predicts, especially on monopoly routes.

Other inflationary pressures on price will include higher insurance premiums for
airlines and raised oil prices if there is conflict in the Middle East. Airlines
will also use their aircraft less efficiently because turnaround times at
airports will be slower. On top of this will come a contraction in supply. Most
US carriers have announced a 20 per cent reduction in schedules over the past
few days. Furthermore, competition is likely to diminish. "It is very likely
that some carriers will fail," says Ed Smick, an airline restructuring
specialist with SH&E, the aviation consultancy.

However, Mr Smick thinks eventual fare increases will not be exorbitant.
Security costs, he points out, will remain a small proportion of overall airline
costs even when they go up. More important, he observes, is the fact that
"elasticity of demand is something every airline must consider. They already
know that consumers do not accept heavy increases in fares."

Nor does the corporate world in general. Without an affordable, convenient air
transport system, international business will not flourish. A balance will have
to be found in the months ahead as authorities consider draconian security
measures and financial intervention to save their airlines. "Society needs a
mass air transport system," says Denis Chagnon, spokesman for the International
Civil Aviation Organisation. "What is it willing to pay for it in time and
money?"

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 17, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Enemies within and without: Stella Rimington's memoirs are a timely reminder of
the liberties sacrificed in the fight against terrorism, writes Jimmy Burns.

BYLINE: By JIMMY BURNS

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 830 words

As the west digests the horror of last week's attack on America, some old
questions about the effectiveness of state intelligence agencies and the
reasonable limits of counter-terrorism in democratic societies have come to the
fore again. Against that background, Stella Rimington's memoirs of a 30-year
career with MI5, Britain's security service, is unexpectedly timely and deserves
careful attention.

The former director-general's career spanned a period during which security
agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were forced to adapt their modus operandi
to cope with huge political change.

The cold war, dividing the world as it did along clear ideological lines, made
the task of the intelligence community relatively straightforward. Spies on both
sides of the Atlantic operated in a world of their own, removed from public
scrutiny.

It was not, as Rimington protests, just spooks playing games: there were real
interests to protect, and the activities of traitors such as Kim Philby, and
more recently, Aldrich Ames, cost lives as well as information. But espionage
was performed by professionals; it was a battle fought was between two
superpowers with a mutual interest in avoiding a real war.

At home, however, MI5 trod a more ambiguous path, seeking out and disrupting
alleged "subversives" with the blessing of elected governments. In her time in
counter-subversion, Rimington's department prepared files to vet individuals'
access to the public sector, and monitored organisations including Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament, the National Union of Mineworkers and the Labour Party.

Parliament defined subversion as actions "intended to overthrow or undermine
parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means". Arguably the
activities of Ms Rimington and her colleagues, just like those of Edgar Hoover,
were disproportionate, although she insists she always drew a distinction
between "subversion" and political dissent.

During the 1970s and 1980s, when US intelligence remained focused on the
communist world, MI5 was forced to reorganise itself in the face of the threat
from the IRA and the almost simultaneous development of "international
terrorism". As Rimington puts it: "Suddenly the tried and tested techniques used
to catch spies and monitor Soviet intelligence officers . . . did not quite fit
the bill of dealing with people who were aiming to kill."

Resources were switched into understanding the aims and methods of the terrorist
groups so as to counter them, and to react quickly to events as they unfolded.
To increase the chances of success, a way had to be found to distribute and to
share highly sensitive intelligence across borders.

The new spies, however, faced formidable difficulties, many beyond their
control. Different law enforcement cultures and varying perceptions of national
self-interest conspired against effective collaboration, not least in the former
Soviet Union.

Rimington names those countries that "actively used terrorism as an arm of
foreign policy" as Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq. She says nothing about the fact
that, while western security agents pursued terrorists, their governments signed
trade deals with these countries.

Revelations by whistleblowers of dirty tricks and parliamentary oversight have
forced the security agencies to be more accountable for their actions in recent
years. Rimington, a bit of a self-promoter but certainly no whistleblower
herself, believes that Britain provides a good model for those who argue that
the security services and the police must have the powers to deal with the
terrorists of the 21st century in a way that preserves rather than destroys
civil liberties.

Post-Watergate and post-Irangate, the CIA has been subjected to heavy
congressional criticism. But MI5 has been covered by case law under the European
convention which recognises that a state may set up a security service to
provide a covert response to covertly organised threats. This has allowed it to
to break into property and plant microphones, under the provisions of the
Security Act, subject to legal redress.

Rimington is on occasion slightly dismissive of the Americans' "vast teams of
communicators and enormous satellite dishes". She also highlights Washington's
equivocal attitude in the past towards militant Irish republicanism.

Encouragingly, her experience of dealing with the IRA suggests that improved
internal and cross-border security co-operation and back-to-basics human
intelligence can help neutralise terrorists. Ultimately, however, improved
intelligence can be only part of the solution. Under Rimington's leadership, MI5
failed to predict several IRA bomb attacks including those on the City of
London, Manchester, and London's Docklands. Those attacks had as much to do with
the lack of political progress in Northern Ireland as with the inefficiency of
the security forces. As Rimington herself puts it: "Terrorism is of course an
immensely political business."

LOAD-DATE: September 16, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 14, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

America's war: This week's attack on the US was launched from within, and George
W. Bush's fight against terrorism will be prosecuted at home as well as abroad,
says Lionel Barber:

BYLINE: By LIONEL BARBER

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 1303 words

America fought a War on Poverty in the 1960s and a war on drugs in the 1980s.
Now, in the wake of this week's devastating assault on the Pentagon and the
World Trade Center, President George W. Bush has declared war on terrorism.

The implications of this step change in foreign policy are enormous, not only
for a traumatised America but also for the US allies that have rallied around
the stricken superpower. As Mr Bush said in his televised address to the nation
on Tuesday night: "The US will make no distinction between those who committed
these acts and those who harbour them."

In effect, the US has pledged to mobilise its formidable resources - economic,
political, military and technological - to waging a war without mercy against
terrorist groups, their patrons, even their sympathisers. At face value, this
suggests a sustained commitment against a declared enemy on a scale not seen
since the start of the cold war, when President Harry S. Truman declared in
early 1946 that he was tired of "babying the Soviets", that they understood only
"an iron fist and strong language".

Some will dismiss Mr Bush's words as the rage of the impotent. Others will argue
that wars against implacable enemies willing to give up their lives for
martyrdom are inherently unwinnable. The administration sees things differently.
"Fighting terrorism has always been important for the US," says Reginald
Bartholomew, a former top State Department diplomat who was ambassador in
Lebanon in 1983 when terrorists blew up a US barracks, killing 242 marines. "But
now it will become the number one priority. It will become the touchstone for
the alliance."

The world's initial response has been an impressive show of solidarity.
Spontaneous demonstrations took place in the streets of Berlin. Unequivocal
condemnation of the terrorist attacks echoed across Paris. Wreaths were laid in
Moscow. The most valuable expression of collective resolve came late on
Wednesday evening in Brussels, when Nato ambassadors invoked for the first time
Article 5 of the alliance's charter. The clause states that an attack against
one member is an attack on the alliance.

Not even during the height of the Cuba missile crisis, when the US and Soviet
Union came to the brink of nuclear war, was Article 5 invoked. The Brussels
resolution, therefore, appears to commit Nato fully to Mr Bush's new war.

In reality, allied support is more nuanced. Several Nato members, including
Britain, have insisted that there is no "blank cheque" for US military action.
Others, notably Turkey, worry about guaranteeing US access to their airspace and
bases lest they become vulnerable to reprisals. In Germany, Otto Schily,
interior minister, noted pointedly that there was no current terrorist threat to
the country. But this could change, depending on the type of military action the
US chose to pursue.

However genuine this week's expressions of condolence, there were already doubts
in Europe about the thrust of the Bush administration's foreign policy before
the attack. The optimistic view is that a new common war against terrorism could
bridge divisions. The alternative is that it could increase tensions.

One long-standing European concern has been the US plan to deploy national
missile defence, which many fear could provoke a crisis with the Russians or the
Chinese. A separate worry in Europe is what is seen as the administration's
combination of high-handed unilateralism and virtual disengagement in the
Balkans and the Middle East.

A senior European official complains that the administration's desire to
distance itself from its predecessor has led to an "anything but Clinton"
policy. Willy-nilly, this has allowed a vacuum to develop in which Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon has felt able to pursue a relentlessly hard-line approach
toward the Palestinian conflict and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. "It's
simply no good just blaming (Yassir) Arafat," he says.

Suggestions that a more even-handed US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict
could have prevented this week's terrorist outrages are enough to make US
officials incandescent with rage. In their view, the causes of terrorism go far
beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict. They extend to a fundamental cultural divide
between those who view the US as the Great Satan and those who support America
as exponent of the values of the modern world.

So what are the options for the administration? In the first instance, says one
official, the US will be far more open to sending in ground forces to capture or
kill terrorists or to punish regimes that aid or abet them. This would mark a
shift in the Pentagon's policy of using precision bombing as its weapon of
choice. It would overturn a US reluctance to commit ground forces that has
existed since the 1993 debacle in Somalia, in which US rangers were killed and
dragged through the streets.

Second, the administration is likely to take an even tougher line with countries
suspected of sponsoring terrorism or "accomplice" states. The last State
Department report on state- sponsored terrorism included six countries: Iran,
Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. In each case, says one official, the
US will use every available means to detect whether there are direct links
between the regime and terrorist groups and will hold open the threat of
punishment.

The third and final category concerns "fellow travellers" - countries such as
Aghanistan or Pakistan with governments that may not actively support the
terrorist groups within their borders but are unwilling or unable to do anything
about it.

Much attention has focused on Osama bin Laden, the renegade Saudi terrorist
believed to be in Afghanistan. Mr bin Laden, who was reported to be under house
arrest, has been tied to several terrorist attacks, notably the bombing of the
US embassy in Kenya. The US has deliberately left open the question of whether
it can pin this week's outrage on Mr bin Laden. But, as one US diplomat notes,
in the current climate his previous record guarantees that he will be a target.

Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and
George Bush Senior, says some form of military action is inevitable. But this is
far less important than pursuing the goal of long-term co-operation with the
allies. "This (terrorism) is not an issue where unilateralism is going to be
effective. In all frankness, bombing terrorist camps does little good."

As Mr Bush embarks on the first phase of his war on terrorism, he faces a
dilemma. Ideally, he would choose military targets that have the broad support
of allies and do not threaten an even more violent backlash not just against the
US but also against weak Arabs in the region. This alone is difficult enough,
especially as the Americans are in no mood to produce proof good enough to pass
muster in a court. It may require the US to forgo full Nato support and go alone
with a "coalition of the willing" with, say, Britain in the forefront.

But, as Gen Scowcroft argues, Mr Bush must also reinforce the gathering of
intelligence at home. This week's terrorist attacks came not in the form of
Japanese warplanes across the Pacific but from commandeered domestic flights
from Boston and Washington. To prevent a repetition of the disaster, the US will
have to control events within its own borders as well as influencing those in
other countries.

Twenty-five years ago, in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis, Congress
enacted laws that drastically reduced the CIA's ability to conduct covert
operations, including political assassinations. It also enacted wide-ranging
privacy laws that hindered domestic surveillance. In the coming months, there
will be great pressure to rewrite these laws. Mr Bush's war will have to be
fought as much at home as abroad.

LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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1073 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

September 14, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

America's war: This week's attack on the US was launched from within, and George
W. Bush's fight against terrorism will be prosecuted at home as well as abroad,
says Lionel Barber:

BYLINE: By LIONEL BARBER

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 1303 words

America fought a War on Poverty in the 1960s and a war on drugs in the 1980s.
Now, in the wake of this week's devastating assault on the Pentagon and the
World Trade Center, President George W. Bush has declared war on terrorism.

The implications of this step change in foreign policy are enormous, not only
for a traumatised America but also for the US allies that have rallied around
the stricken superpower. As Mr Bush said in his televised address to the nation
on Tuesday night: "The US will make no distinction between those who committed
these acts and those who harbour them."

In effect, the US has pledged to mobilise its formidable resources - economic,
political, military and technological - to waging a war without mercy against
terrorist groups, their patrons, even their sympathisers. At face value, this
suggests a sustained commitment against a declared enemy on a scale not seen
since the start of the cold war, when President Harry S. Truman declared in
early 1946 that he was tired of "babying the Soviets", that they understood only
"an iron fist and strong language".

Some will dismiss Mr Bush's words as the rage of the impotent. Others will argue
that wars against implacable enemies willing to give up their lives for
martyrdom are inherently unwinnable. The administration sees things differently.
"Fighting terrorism has always been important for the US," says Reginald
Bartholomew, a former top State Department diplomat who was ambassador in
Lebanon in 1983 when terrorists blew up a US barracks, killing 242 marines. "But
now it will become the number one priority. It will become the touchstone for
the alliance."

The world's initial response has been an impressive show of solidarity.
Spontaneous demonstrations took place in the streets of Berlin. Unequivocal
condemnation of the terrorist attacks echoed across Paris. Wreaths were laid in
Moscow. The most valuable expression of collective resolve came late on
Wednesday evening in Brussels, when Nato ambassadors invoked for the first time
Article 5 of the alliance's charter. The clause states that an attack against
one member is an attack on the alliance.

Not even during the height of the Cuba missile crisis, when the US and Soviet
Union came to the brink of nuclear war, was Article 5 invoked. The Brussels
resolution, therefore, appears to commit Nato fully to Mr Bush's new war.

In reality, allied support is more nuanced. Several Nato members, including
Britain, have insisted that there is no "blank cheque" for US military action.
Others, notably Turkey, worry about guaranteeing US access to their airspace and
bases lest they become vulnerable to reprisals. In Germany, Otto Schily,
interior minister, noted pointedly that there was no current terrorist threat to
the country. But this could change, depending on the type of military action the
US chose to pursue.

However genuine this week's expressions of condolence, there were already doubts
in Europe about the thrust of the Bush administration's foreign policy before
the attack. The optimistic view is that a new common war against terrorism could
bridge divisions. The alternative is that it could increase tensions.

One long-standing European concern has been the US plan to deploy national
missile defence, which many fear could provoke a crisis with the Russians or the
Chinese. A separate worry in Europe is what is seen as the administration's
combination of high-handed unilateralism and virtual disengagement in the
Balkans and the Middle East.

A senior European official complains that the administration's desire to
distance itself from its predecessor has led to an "anything but Clinton"
policy. Willy-nilly, this has allowed a vacuum to develop in which Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon has felt able to pursue a relentlessly hard-line approach
toward the Palestinian conflict and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. "It's
simply no good just blaming (Yassir) Arafat," he says.

Suggestions that a more even-handed US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict
could have prevented this week's terrorist outrages are enough to make US
officials incandescent with rage. In their view, the causes of terrorism go far
beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict. They extend to a fundamental cultural divide
between those who view the US as the Great Satan and those who support America
as exponent of the values of the modern world.

So what are the options for the administration? In the first instance, says one
official, the US will be far more open to sending in ground forces to capture or
kill terrorists or to punish regimes that aid or abet them. This would mark a
shift in the Pentagon's policy of using precision bombing as its weapon of
choice. It would overturn a US reluctance to commit ground forces that has
existed since the 1993 debacle in Somalia, in which US rangers were killed and
dragged through the streets.

Second, the administration is likely to take an even tougher line with countries
suspected of sponsoring terrorism or "accomplice" states. The last State
Department report on state- sponsored terrorism included six countries: Iran,
Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. In each case, says one official, the
US will use every available means to detect whether there are direct links
between the regime and terrorist groups and will hold open the threat of
punishment.

The third and final category concerns "fellow travellers" - countries such as
Aghanistan or Pakistan with governments that may not actively support the
terrorist groups within their borders but are unwilling or unable to do anything
about it.

Much attention has focused on Osama bin Laden, the renegade Saudi terrorist
believed to be in Afghanistan. Mr bin Laden, who was reported to be under house
arrest, has been tied to several terrorist attacks, notably the bombing of the
US embassy in Kenya. The US has deliberately left open the question of whether
it can pin this week's outrage on Mr bin Laden. But, as one US diplomat notes,
in the current climate his previous record guarantees that he will be a target.

Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and
George Bush Senior, says some form of military action is inevitable. But this is
far less important than pursuing the goal of long-term co-operation with the
allies. "This (terrorism) is not an issue where unilateralism is going to be
effective. In all frankness, bombing terrorist camps does little good."

As Mr Bush embarks on the first phase of his war on terrorism, he faces a
dilemma. Ideally, he would choose military targets that have the broad support
of allies and do not threaten an even more violent backlash not just against the
US but also against weak Arabs in the region. This alone is difficult enough,
especially as the Americans are in no mood to produce proof good enough to pass
muster in a court. It may require the US to forgo full Nato support and go alone
with a "coalition of the willing" with, say, Britain in the forefront.

But, as Gen Scowcroft argues, Mr Bush must also reinforce the gathering of
intelligence at home. This week's terrorist attacks came not in the form of
Japanese warplanes across the Pacific but from commandeered domestic flights
from Boston and Washington. To prevent a repetition of the disaster, the US will
have to control events within its own borders as well as influencing those in
other countries.

Twenty-five years ago, in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis, Congress
enacted laws that drastically reduced the CIA's ability to conduct covert
operations, including political assassinations. It also enacted wide-ranging
privacy laws that hindered domestic surveillance. In the coming months, there
will be great pressure to rewrite these laws. Mr Bush's war will have to be
fought as much at home as abroad.

LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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1074 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

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September 14, 2001 Friday
London Edition 2

Fear comes to 4m Arab-Americans CIVILIAN ANGER:

BYLINE: By ANDREW EDGECLIFFE-JOHNSON, CAROLA HOYOS and SHEILA MCNULTY

SECTION: ASSAULT ON AMERICA INVESTIGATIONS ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 339 words

DATELINE: NEW YORK and HOUSTON

With US officials increasingly blaming Osama bin Laden, the Islamic
fundamentalist, as the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks, Arab communities
across the country are bracing themselves for retaliation from angry US
civilians.

"Things are happening so fast, we are extremely concerned," said Khalil Jahshan,
vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest
grassroots Arab-American civil rights organisation.

Death threats and verbal harassment have been reported throughout the country by
Muslims, and by people who have been mistaken for them.

Hate messages have also been left on internet message boards. The most serious
incident occurred the night after the Twin Tower attacks.

Gunshots shattered windows at an Islamic centre that houses a mosque and a
school in a Dallas, Texas, suburb. Several bomb threats shut Arab-American
charter schools near Detroit, home to one of the largest Arab communities in the
US.

Lawmakers across the country, including Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York,
have appealed for restraint to Americans spurred on by pictures from the Middle
East of Palestinians celebrating America's tragedy, even as Arab leaders
condemned the attack.

European and Arab diplomats at the United Nations say the attack, if perpetrated
by an Islamic terrorist, would probably shift US political sentiment further
towards Israel.

What worries Mr Jahshan more than the threats that have prompted the need for a
Washington DC police officer to stand guard outside his office, is the lasting
effects Tuesday's terrorist attacks will have on the civil liberties of
Americans, especially the 4m Arab-Americans.

If authorities confirm Islamic extremists were behind the attack, Arab- American
leaders fear the subtle anti-Arab sentiment within the country, partially driven
by Washington's support of Israel and its experiences with countries such as
Libya and Iraq, will become more aggressive. Additional reporting by Andrew
Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York and Sheila McNulty in Houston

LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2001

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September 14, 2001 Friday
London Edition 2

Fear comes to 4m Arab-Americans CIVILIAN ANGER:

BYLINE: By ANDREW EDGECLIFFE-JOHNSON, CAROLA HOYOS and SHEILA MCNULTY

SECTION: ASSAULT ON AMERICA INVESTIGATIONS ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 339 words

DATELINE: NEW YORK and HOUSTON

With US officials increasingly blaming Osama bin Laden, the Islamic
fundamentalist, as the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks, Arab communities
across the country are bracing themselves for retaliation from angry US
civilians.

"Things are happening so fast, we are extremely concerned," said Khalil Jahshan,
vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest
grassroots Arab-American civil rights organisation.

Death threats and verbal harassment have been reported throughout the country by
Muslims, and by people who have been mistaken for them.

Hate messages have also been left on internet message boards. The most serious
incident occurred the night after the Twin Tower attacks.

Gunshots shattered windows at an Islamic centre that houses a mosque and a
school in a Dallas, Texas, suburb. Several bomb threats shut Arab-American
charter schools near Detroit, home to one of the largest Arab communities in the
US.

Lawmakers across the country, including Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York,
have appealed for restraint to Americans spurred on by pictures from the Middle
East of Palestinians celebrating America's tragedy, even as Arab leaders
condemned the attack.

European and Arab diplomats at the United Nations say the attack, if perpetrated
by an Islamic terrorist, would probably shift US political sentiment further
towards Israel.

What worries Mr Jahshan more than the threats that have prompted the need for a
Washington DC police officer to stand guard outside his office, is the lasting
effects Tuesday's terrorist attacks will have on the civil liberties of
Americans, especially the 4m Arab-Americans.

If authorities confirm Islamic extremists were behind the attack, Arab- American
leaders fear the subtle anti-Arab sentiment within the country, partially driven
by Washington's support of Israel and its experiences with countries such as
Libya and Iraq, will become more aggressive. Additional reporting by Andrew
Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York and Sheila McNulty in Houston

LOAD-DATE: September 14, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 13, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

Oil prices fall back on concern about declining demand FUEL FEARS:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and SHEILA MCNULTY

SECTION: ASSAULT ON AMERICA WORLD ECONOMY ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 612 words

DATELINE: LONDON and HOUSTON

Oil prices on the London futures market fell back yesterday as the worries about
supply interruptions that caused Tuesday's immediate price surge gave way to
concerns about declining demand for the world fuel.

The Opec cartel, controlling around a third of world output, gave assurances of
supplies in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the US. Opec members are
committed "to guarantee sufficient oil supplies", said Ali Rodriguez, Opec
secretary-general, though he saw no reason for any increase now.

The main question for the world oil market is whether any Middle East producing
state is discovered to have been behind the suicide attacks. US President George
W. Bush made clear the US would retaliate against any state "harbouring" the
terrorists. The US has in the past accused three Opec members, Iraq, Iran and
Libya, of sponsoring "state terrorism".

According to a UBS Warburg report yesterday, the most likely outcome is that
there will be continued tension in the oil market, due to some Arab involvement
or support for those deemed responsible for the attack, leading to higher oil
prices. It rated as a "low probability" the possibility that the attacks were
not connected to the Middle East and that any US response would have no knock-on
effects in the region.

In the absence of direct Arab implication in these attacks, "the market is more
concerned about demand, and what the impact (of Tuesday's events) is on the pace
of global recovery," said Klaus Rehaag, editor of the International Energy
Agency's monthly oil report. The IEA's latest report, released yesterday but
prepared before the attacks, said industrialised countries's total oil stocks
had fallen below last year's levels, creating "market fragility and greater
vulnerability to external shocks". But, significantly, it pointed out that North
American stocks were above the OECD average.

"The main risk is likely to be to confidence - frightened consumers don't spend,
but hoard," said Andew Oswald, a University of Warwick economist.

A leading US energy expert, Amy Myers Jaffe of Houston's Rice University, said
it was not surprising "the oil market is a little jittery" because of concerns
that oil-producing countries might have helped the terrorist attackers and
because of the prospect of US retaliation. "Any time there is a threat of
military action in the Middle East, an area through which huge amounts of oil
pass, people are always a little bit concerned about what it might mean for
long-term prices", she said.

But Ms Jaffe said it was no reason to panic or to stock up on gas, or to believe
that oil facilities would be targeted. "That has not been the pattern to
international terrorism."

Adam Sieminski, a US-based analyst for Deutsche Bank, said he expected the
attacks to "increase the desire for (US) energy independence".

This week, the Senate energy committee had been due to work on its version of an
energy bill in which the House of Representatives has already voted to open up
Alaska's wildlife reserve to oil exploration. The US imports more than 10m b/d
of the nearly 20m barrels it consumes daily.

As a legacy from the 1973 Arab oil embargo, IEA member countries keep stocks
covering at least 90 days of oil imports, while the US has its own Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. Former President Bill Clinton took 30m barrels out of this to
damp prices last year but it is now being refilled and currently totals 544m
barrels.

However, two smaller non-IEA Asian countries took precautionary measures
yesterday. Taiwanese refiners said they were stopping product exports, while
Thailand ordered refiners to increase products from 3 to 5 per cent of daily
demand.

LOAD-DATE: September 12, 2001

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September 13, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

Military options examined to aid US response TRANSATLANTIC ALLIANCE:

BYLINE: By JIMMY BURNS, SARAH NEVILLE and ANDREW PARKER

SECTION: ASSAULT ON AMERICA BRITAIN ; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 550 words

Britain yesterday considered what military support it could provide to the US in
any retaliation for the attacks on New York and Washington.

A Whitehall official said Britain could participate in military operations
mounted by the US, or provide logistical support.

"Nothing is excluded," said the official, who stressed no decisions had been
taken. "People are looking to be ready if there is a request from the US."

Jack Straw, foreign secretary, said: "The UK is already offering a great deal of
intelligence and security co-operation. We stand ready, like other European
nations, to offer any other assistance."

Nato yesterday considered its response to the attacks on New York and Washington
but defence analysts said Britain was the alliance member best placed to
participate in any US military operations.

Rear Admiral Richard Cobbold, director of the Royal United Services Institute, a
defence think-tank, said: "If there was overwhelming evidence of state
involvement (in Tuesday's attacks) then certainly Britain has got the capability
to co-operate with the Americans directly and militarily. We have Tomahawk
ground attack missiles that can go just about anywhere."

The UK is about to start its biggest military exercise since the mid-1980s. The
exercise in Oman involves 24,000 troops and large numbers of aircraft and ships.

They include the nuclear submarines HMS Superb and HMS Trafalgar, the aircraft
carrier HMS Illustrious and the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean. Trafalgar carries
Tomahawk missiles.

The Ministry of Defence said there were no plans to abandon the exercise but
stressed it was not related to Tuesday's attacks.

Defence analysts said the most valuable and immediate assistance that Britain
could provide the US was intelligence. MI5, the security service, MI6, the
secret intelligence service, and GCHQ, the listening station at Cheltenham, face
an unprecedented challenge.

"The fact that there were English as well as other non-US citizens who were
victims of the attack means that US and the British and other governments are
bonding in a multinational effort to prevent this ever happening again," said
Nigel Churton, the managing director of Control Risks, the UK-based risk
assessment and security firm.

Baroness Thatcher, the former prime minister, was embroiled in controversy in
1986 after she permitted US aircraft based in Britain to make attacks on Libya.
But the official said yesterday that Britain would consider a similar request by
the US in the wake of Tuesday's attacks.

The official suggested Diego Garcia, the British territory in the Indian ocean,
may be relevant. It has a big US military presence.

Britain has a communications centre at its base on Cyprus that could be
important in any Middle East military operations.

The UK and the US have regularly stood together in military operations, partly
because of the so-called special relationship. But the collaboration is also
driven by the close integration of military command and control systems. France,
the other significant military power in the EU, does not have the same
technological integration with the US.

During the Gulf war in 1991, for example, British warships gave protection to
the US fleet. There was also close collaboration during the Nato action against
Yugoslavia in 1999.

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September 13, 2001 Thursday
USA Edition 1

Palestiniansfear Israeli attacks MIDDLE EAST:

BYLINE: By Ralph Atkins in Jerusalem

SECTION: ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 548 words

Palestinians yesterday accused Israel of using the tragedy in the US as cover
for military operations around Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, which they said
killed 10 Palestinians.

In fierce overnight fighting Israel underscored its determination to confront
militants suspected of terrorism. But with US and European attention diverted by
the attacks in the US, Palestinians feared unbridled Israel military responses
in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Recent suicide bombings inside Israel originated from Jenin, according to the
Israeli military. Israeli tanks had seized positions in Jenin earlier on Tuesday
in areas under Palestinian control.

Tensions rose as the possibility that the US attacks might have links with the
Palestinian cause raised the spectre of retaliatory US military strikes that
would further destabilise the region.

President George W. Bush's promise to avenge the attacks and "make no
distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who
harbour them" raised alarm in a region where some governments are accused by the
US of aiding terrorism.

The concern was underlined by the chorus of condemnation emanating from Arab and
Muslim capitals. In Iran, which is on the list of the US State Department's
sponsors of terrorism, President Mohammad Khatami denounced the attacks. Muammar
Gadaffi, leader of Libya, which was bombed by the US in 1986 in retaliation for
a terrorist attack, offered aid to the victims of the "gruesome act".

Islamic groups also sought to distance themselves. The Muslim Brotherhood,
Egypt's main Islamist group, said the attacks contradicted "human and Islamic
values". Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's leading Shia cleric, said: "No
rational person can accept any people being exposed to what the American people
have been exposed to."

The attacks on the US have increased the pressure on Yassir Arafat, the
Palestinian leader, who yesterday postponed a two-day visit to Syria, where he
hoped to cement a reconciliation after more than 20 years of acrimonious
relations.

Palestinians argue that their uprising against Israel's occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip cannot be calmed without political concessions by Israel -
at the minimum, a freeze on the expansion of Jewish settlements in occupied
territories. But after Tuesday's events, the west's determination not to reward
violence means Mr Arafat will be under still stronger pressure to curb
Palestinian attacks before any negotiations begin.

Palestinian efforts to distance themselves from the attacks in the US - and the
genuine expressions of horror - were undermined by televised scenes of
anti-American jubilation on Tuesday night in areas occupied by Israel.
Palestinian officials said reports of celebrations had been manipulated.

Israeli officials said Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, did not regard the
constraints on Israel's military as having been lifted. "We could have done much
more, but the factor preventing us was not the international condemnation but
because we don't want the situation to destabilise," said one diplomat. Instead,
the prevailing mood in Israeli ministries yesterday was also of shock at the
extent of the tragedy in the US, which took terrorism to extremes not imagined,
even in Israel.

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September 13, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

The value of pre-emptive force: Action against states sheltering or sponsoring
terrorists is indispensable, says Jeffrey Gedmin:

BYLINE: By JEFFREY GEDMIN

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ASSAULT ON AMERICA ; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 890 words

It will take weeks,and perhaps months, for the US to sift through the details
and establish clear and compelling evidence of culpability for this week's
murderous terrorist attacks. President George W. Bush has promised a severe
reply for the perpetrators. Colin Powell, US secretary of state, has pledged to
bring "those responsible to justice".

It is politically convenient to concentrate on apprehending individual
terrorists - this is an important part of the problem. But terrorism has long
ceased to be merely a criminal justice problem. What of the state that makes the
terror possible?

In the US, the debate about justice and retaliation is almost certain to give
way to a fuller debate about pre-emptive strikes. It will be controversial, not
least with many of our closest allies. If pursued properly, however, the
pre-emptive use of force offers the best assurance that vicious terrorist
attacks are less likely to occur in future.

Consider the case of Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi national whose network,
at least initially, has emerged as a prime suspect in the World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks. Mr bin Laden has been wanted for questioning about alleged
links to the bombing of US military bases in Saudi Arabia.

Ramzi Yousef, the apparent mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,
was said to have had Mr bin Laden's address in his pocket when he was arrested
in Pakistan last year. The US State Department describes him as "one of the most
significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world".
There are indications that groups tied to Mr bin Laden were responsible for US
embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

If Mr bin Laden's fingerprints are on the most recent acts of terror, the US can
be expected to intensify its search for him and his accomplices. Mr Bush has
indicated, moreover, that the US will make no distinction between the terrorists
and those who harbour them. This has given rise to the assumption that the US
will strike the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, which has provided Mr bin Laden
with aid and protection. But what if the evidence in this instance is
unobtainable or inconclusive? Even in these circumstances, it would be wrong for
the US to rule out such attacks, because, put simply, they are likely to
diminish the possibility of future acts of violence.

The issue of states sponsoring terrorism is hardly a new one. Consider the Pan
Am bombing. A Scottish court in the Netherlands found a Libyan intelligence
agent guilty of planting the bomb that brought down Pan Am flight 103 over
Lockerbie, murdering 270 people in 1988. To an extent, some justice has at last
been done. Libya even co-operated in the end in turning suspects over to the
court. But it remains a paradoxical justice. There is little doubt in
intelligence circles that the order for the attack came from the Libyan
government itself.

Similarly, for many years the Syrian government has sponsored terrorism and
provided terrorists with a base from which to train and to operate. And the
Iranians, even in the era of reform, have continued to finance and to nurture
Hezbollah and Hamas, terrorist groups.

In fact, it is hard to conceive of many of the world's leading terrorist groups
flourishing without the protection and assistance of governments. How much more
difficult and costly would it be for the likes of Mr bin Laden if he knew that a
country such as Afghanistan were not at his disposal for territorial protection,
training facilities and perhaps even logistical assistance?

It is true that pre-emptive strikes raise difficult legal and political
questions. In 1981, when Israel attacked a nuclear reactor outside Baghdad,
Menachem Begin, then Israeli prime minister, argued that the strike was
defensive in character. The United Nations General Assembly disagreed and
roundly condemned Israel. Even the Reagan administration felt compelled to
criticise Israel.

However, the CIA argued at the time that Iraq was indeed planning to build
nuclear weapons. King Hussein watched Israeli planes fly over Jordanian airspace
without phoning his Arab brother Saddam Hussein to warn him. And a decade later
came Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and much fuller knowledge about Iraq's intentions
and capabilities. History suggests that Israel was right.

When President Ronald Reagan attacked Libya in 1986, the action was planned as
retaliation and to raise the cost of terrorism to Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan
dictator. Although Mr Gadaffi escaped injury, the blow to his family seems to
have had an extraordinary effect. The wave of terrorism he had promoted suddenly
subsided until Lockerbie.

Of course, pre-emptive strikes are not foolproof. No set of measures - certainly
none that a democracy will ever contemplate - will bring us close to
invulnerability. A combination of methods will be necessary in any event. And
discretion and selection of targets will always be sensitive. Still, if the US
insists on focusing on the retaliation for the most recent acts, and hunting
down the criminals currently involved, it will dodge the most serious
responsibility of all: reducing the probability of such barbaric attacks in the
future.

The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in
Washington and executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 12, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Worst attack on US since Pearl Harbor

BYLINE: By FARHAN BOKHARI, HARVEY MORRIS, PETER SPIEGEL and RICHARD WOLFFE

SECTION: AMERICA S DAY OF TERROR ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 878 words

DATELINE: LONDON , ISLAMABAD and WASHINGTON

The organisation, sophis-tication and range of yesterday's attacks - the worst
onslaught against US territory since Pearl Harbor - went beyond anything
witnessed in post-war terrorism.

But unlike Pearl Harbor, the perpetrators have yet to be identified, leaving
President George W. Bush unable to respond with speedy and forceful retaliation.

In 1995, US officials and the public jumped to the conclusion that the Oklahoma
bombing which killed 168 people was the work of Middle Eastern terrorists, only
to discover that it was carried out by a homegrown bomber, Timothy McVeigh.

Yesterday's attacks would have required possibly dozens of individuals to
co-ordinate and equip the hijackers who carried out the suicide attacks,
according to anti-terrorism experts.

Bruce Hoffman, director of the influential Rand Corporation's Washington office
and author of "Inside Terrorism", said multiple hijackings from different
airports within the US would take tremendous organisation.

"It has to have the resources, financing, training operations, and the will, so
you're really talking about a sophisticated organisation," Mr Hoffman said.

If the plan and the perpetrators originated outside the US, it would have been a
massive and risky operation to get them there. Terrorists on the move need
documents and safe houses. There is a constant risk that word of such
preparations will leak out.

Western intelligence agencies constantly monitor the movement of terrorist
suspects and members of terrorist cells and "sleepers" are often left
undisturbed, so that they can be monitored without their knowledge.

Modern surveillance equipment is increasingly sophisticated and includes
automated monitoring of telephone communications around the world.

But fears have been expressed among western intelligence services that terrorist
groups may be using equal sophisticated counter-measures on the internet to plan
their attacks.

"Uncrackable encryption is allowing terrorists to communicate about their
criminal intentions without fear of outside intrusion," Louis Freeh, then
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told the Senate in March:
"They're thwarting the efforts of law enforcement to detect, prevent and
investigate illegal activities."

Experts claim encrypted messages and blueprints can be passed around the world
using pornographic sites and web chatrooms.

The received wisdom among intelligence services is that terrorist groups
invariably need one or more state sponsors to carry out even one successful
operation.

Thus, the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco in which three people were killed and
the bombing of a PanAm airliner over Lockerbie were both traced to Libya. Iran
was the prime suspect behind Islamic bombers who attacked the US embassy in
Beirut in 1983 and went on to kill or wound more than 200 US marines at their
base in the Lebanese capital.

Iraq has the motivation and the expertise to have mounted yesterday's attacks
but it is difficult to see how it could have deployed the means necessary to
carry them out, given its present isolation.

The belief in inevitable state involvement has been somewhat overturned by the
activities of Osama Bin Laden, the FBI's most wanted man, who has managed to
mount international operations from his effectively autonomous base in
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. His supporters are drawn from an Islamic
international group, whose members include former volunteers in the war against
Soviet occupation.

Experts in neighbouring Pakistan nevertheless believe yesterday's attacks may
have been beyond even Bin Laden's capabilities alone. The US is potentially
vulnerable to coalitions of groups that seek to attack western targets, and they
acknowledged Bin Laden might have been involved in aspects, such as the training
of the perpetrators.

Bin Laden, a dissident Saudi, is wanted in connection with the 1998 bombing of
two American embassies in East Africa. His group - known as Al-Quaida - was
among the prime suspects in last year's bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of
Aden.

A videotape of Bin Laden has been circulating in the Middle East in which he
says last year's attack on the Cole was just the beginning of a campaign and
calling for further attacks on US targets, according to author Peter Bergen.

Mr Bergen, who is about to publish a book on Bin Laden, said: "We have to ask
ourselves who is capable and motivated to do this. At the top of the list is
Osama bin Laden. You are looking at an incredibly sophisticated bombing
operation. You need to have suicide bombers as well as people who are skilled in
flying commercial aircraft. This is not some American militia group or
Palestinian group."

Experts said that the most troubling aspect of yesterday's attack was the
ability of terrorists to circumvent domestic security arrangements at airports,
particularly as there has not been a successful domestic hijacking of a US
aircraft in decades.

They noted that counter-terrorist intelligence is often hard to come by, so the
best way to block terrorist attack is frequently through physical security
measures. One expert said, however, that US airports tend to have some of the
loosest security among the industrialised nations. Additional reporting by
Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 12, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Libya pledge in Caribbean worries US: Poor islands are happy with Gadaffi offer
to give cash and buy bananas but Washington is not, reports Canute James

BYLINE: By CANUTE JAMES

SECTION: LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 771 words

For small eastern Caribbean islands seeking escape from economic stagnation,
anew and controversial source of help is promising much.

The islands' governments have grabbed at a Libyan promise to allow them access
to a Dollars 2bn (Pounds 1.2bn) development fund. Libya has also promised to
purchase at high prices all the bananas on which some of the islands depend, and
to give the countries Dollars 21m immediately.

The promised aid, agreed during recent talks in Libya between three Caribbean
prime ministers and Muammer Gadaffi, Libya's president, has caused concern among
other Caribbean leaders.

Libya's increasingly strong influence in the Caribbean is also causing concern
in Washington, where US legislators recently voted for a five-year extension of
economic sanctions against Tripoli. The US and some other countries imposed the
sanctions because they believe the Libyan government has not taken
responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland,
in which 270 people died.

"Our co-operation with Libya is not based on ideology," said Pierre Charles,
prime minister of Dominica, who visited Tripoli with his colleagues from St
Vincent and Grenada. "We want to get technical and economic assistance for our
countries.

"We are not doing anything to antagonise the US. But the US would recognise
that, as tiny countries, we have to find the ways and means of raising the
living standards our of people, and dealing with the serious debt burden that we
have."

In deciding to visit Libya seeking aid, the region's leaders said they faced
increasingly intractable problems. Their economies, based mainly on bananas and
tourism, are threatened by the deregulation of preferred markets on which they
have depended.

Heavily indebted, they say aid for the Caribbean from the US last year totalled
Dollars 120m, just over a half of the amount a decade ago, and Dollars 70m of it
went to Haiti.

Five prime ministers originally had agreed to visit Colonel Gadaffi. Denzil
Douglas of St Kitts-Nevis and Lester Bird of Antigua pulled out of the mission.
"There is nothing wrong with the concept of visiting Libya," said Mr Bird. "That
is why initially I had agreed to it.

"However, in reviewing the decision, and in talks with my cabinet, it was
pointed out that there was inadequate preparation for the trip."

He said it was "ludicrous" to suggest that he pulled out because of objections
by the US. Antigua is among the countries that will get some of the promised
Dollars 21m.

"The US has no desire, and sees no need, to dictate to other countries how they
should conduct their foreign affairs," a spokesman for the US State Department
said yesterday.

However, such official calm masks clear concerns. "The Caribbean is
strategically important to the US - it is economically important for shipping,"
said a US diplomat in the region. "We will be worried if there is to be
significant influence on the region's governments by elements that clearly have
a poor and frightening record of doing anything to get their way."

Libya's promise has also worried other Caribbean leaders. Basdeo Panday, prime
minister of Trinidad and Tobago, said he was concerned about the implications of
his colleagues' visit to Libya when there were concerns about Libya's
connections in the Caribbean.

Saying he would not tell his colleagues how to conduct their business, Owen
Arthur, prime minister of Barbados, said regional governments should be careful
about agreements they were signing. He said, however, that some countries in the
region needed financial assistance. "It is very difficult to transform a banana
economy in a small state."

Government officials in the eastern Caribbean are guarded about the timing of
their access to the promised aid. They said Libya would send a mission to the
region shortly to discuss the details, and to examine the prospects for Libyan
investments in resort hotels and the write-off of existing loans, including
Dollars 6m owed by Grenada.

"The discussions will also deal with the sale of our bananas, and the prices we
will get, as our fruit is now sold to the EU, although the future of the market
is uncertain," said a St Vincent official.

The region's leaders maintain that the economic pressures they are encountering
cannot be resolved by awaiting increased assistance from the industrialised
countries.

"Our economies are affected just like the economies of the developed countries,"
said Mr Charles. "If the developed countries are saying that they are into a
recession, then one can imagine what is happening to the smaller economies like
those in the Caribbean."

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 10, 2001 Monday
London Edition 3

Zimbabwe farmers welcome deal on land

BYLINE: By TONY HAWKINS

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA & ASIA-PACIFIC ; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 424 words

DATELINE: HARARE

Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers Union yesterday ended speculation over its
response to the Nigerian-brokered deal aimed at ending the country's land crisis
by welcoming the deal and calling on the government to ensure its
implementation.

However, the deal did not stop 150 settlers seeking to take over a farm in the
Beatrice area near Harare on Saturday.

Several occupations of white-owned farms were also reported from the Mvuuri
tobacco-growing area north-east of Harare. On both occasions there was no police
intervention.

The CFU said the Abuja declaration represented "a homegrown and internationally
accepted solution to the Zimbabwe land crisis". At a time when its members were
under siege in different parts of the country, the CFU said: "We have great
confidence in the ability of our government to implement the agreement, and we
are happy to see that they acknowledge the necessity to return to the rule of
law."

On his return to Harare yesterday from Libya where he had been negotiating
economic aid, President Robert Mugabe said: "It is a victory for us and the
farmers because they need to be compensated. We were fighting for the farmers to
be compensated and they should have realised that."

He said it was critical for Zimbabwe that the Abuja meeting had reaffirmed that
land was at the core of the crisis. "It is going to be settled by us as the
government on the basis of our constitution and law," he said.

But some analysts said the Abuja deal was "unravelling" due to a "huge gap"
between the British and Zimbabwean interpretations of the deal. "The government
thinks it has got the money without having to deliver anything," one said.

"The two sides are on different planets," said a farming industry source.

Stan Mudenge, Zimbabwe foreign minister, contradicted the UK interpretation of
the agreement, saying that only 5 per cent of white- owned farmland was covered.

According to Joseph Made, agriculture minister, the UK position had been: "Let
us take what the Zimbabwe Minister of Lands and Agriculture (himself) has put on
the table. That is very positive." Settlers would remain on all the farms they
had occupied, he insisted.

Zimbabwe's main opposition party remained doubtful about whether the deal marked
a change in the tense political atmosphere. "What the British think they agreed
at Abuja and what is happening on the farms and in the elections this weekend
are two very different things," said a spokesman for the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. For regional reports, www.ft.com/mideastafrica

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 8, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Zimbabwe land deal greeted by scepticism

BYLINE: By TONY HAWKINS and MICHAEL HOLMAN

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC & AFRICA ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 478 words

DATELINE: HARARE and ABUJA

The Nigeria-brokered agreement on land resettlement in Zimbabwe was greeted with
caution, scepticism and some muted optimism in Harare yesterday.

Under the accord announced in the Nigerian capital Abuja late on Thursday,
Zimbabwe agreed to stop landless blacks from occupying white-owned farms.

Britain, the former colonial power, agreed to co-finance compensation for white
farmers whose land would be redistributed to the black majority in an orderly
way under the deal.

The country's white farmers see it as a potential lifeline, provided the
conditions enshrined in the deal are fully honoured. But late last night neither
the Zimbabwe government nor the white-dominated Commercial Farmers Union had
commented in any detail on the agreement, a delay that underlines the
wait-and-see attitude that has been adopted pending President Robert Mugabe's
return from a visit to Libya.

In the president's absence, government spokesmen are unwilling to comment, but
farming industry officials welcomed the agreement as a breakthrough that could
halt, and possibly even reverse, the precipitous decline in commercial
agriculture.

Opposition leaders have no such inhibitions. They are deeply sceptical and
highly critical.

Tendayi Biti, secretary for land affairs in the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change, described the agreement as "a short-term breathing measure"
for Mr Mugabe's government.

"Abuja represents a serious diplomatic hoodwink," by the ruling Zanu-PF party,
designed to give the government a lifeline until the 2002 presidential elections
next March, said Mr Biti.

Politicians say the opposition is dismayed at the Commonwealth's failure to
include free and fair elections among the conditions for support for Zimbabwe's
land resettlement programme.

"It could well be that Abuja will turn into a lifeline for Mugabe, helping him
to hang on to power in March," said an opposition activist.

"The reference to the government taking action against violence and intimidation
is pathetic," said a member of a human rights group.

An Amani Trust report just released showed that 73 per cent of all acts of
violence reported to the human rights group in 2000/01 were carried out by
so-called war veterans and government supporters, while another 22 per cent were
attributed to the police, army, secret service and even government ministers, he
said.

The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange was unmoved by news of the deal, and industrial
shares were only fractionally higher in thin trade. Business leaders were also
cautious declining to comment publicly until Mr Mugabe has given the Zimbabwe
government's interpretation of the agree- ment.

"On the face of it, it's excellent news," said a banker, "but we have been here
before, only to see the whole thing collapse when the talks got down to the
details. Will the deal end the violence, Page 13 www.ft.com/zimbabwe

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 8, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Africa's deal: If it works, the Zimbabwe agreement will be a milestone, say
Michael Holman and Tony Hawkins:

BYLINE: By TONY HAWKINS and MICHAEL HOLMAN

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 1185 words

The agreement thrashed out in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Thursday to bring
peace to Zimbabwe will have implications far beyond the borders of that
beleaguered country in southern Africa.

If it succeeds in defusing the violent divisions and paving the way for
genuinely democratic presidential elections next year, it will prove a triumph
for African-led diplomacy. It also marks an extraordinary personal success for
President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.

At the same time it represents a much-needed boost to the credibility of the
Commonwealth, the 54-nation organisation that links the former colonies of
Britain's erstwhile empire.

It is a big "if". The reaction to the deal in Zimbabwe yesterday ranged from the
downright sceptical to the cautiously optimistic. While the predominantly white
commercial farmers were upbeat, the response from the political opposition to
President Robert Mugabe was much more doubtful.

The agreement is "one of those paper things that will deliver nothing", said
Prof-essor Welshman Ncube, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change.

Delegates to the talks in Abuja were quick to acknowledge that a crisis that has
brought Zimbabwe to the brink of catastrophe is far from over.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Mugabe honours his commitments. The agreement
requires him to restore the rule of law in the country, curb the political
thuggery used to terrorise opponents of his government and demoralise the
white-dominated commercial farming sector. In return, Britain has agreed to help
finance a land redistribution programme.

But the deal fails to spell out the Commonwealth and international response
should Mr Mugabe renege. Perhaps more worrying, there is a danger that the
resettlement movement led by so-called war veterans to occupy white farms has
taken on a life of its own and will prove impossible to restrain.

Whatever the outcome, thanks to Mr Obasanjo's role in Abuja, the crisis can no
longer be seen merely as a quarrel between Britain and Zimbabwe over land
reform. Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, helped secure agreement by
keeping a low profile, privately acknowledging that there is little the UK can
do on its own.

Before Abuja, Mr Mugabe was facing huge pressures: de facto sanctions, a
collapse in foreign investment and tourist visits and an impending food
shortage. These pressures will continue, but with another dimension: Africa has
unequivocally declared its concern.

The message was hammered home in the opening address by Sule Lamido, Nigeria's
foreign minister. "Africa", he said "cannot afford another war, not least one
with racial overtones . . . The signals coming from the crisis in Zimbabwe
cannot be ignored by Africa.

"The feeling of insecurity on the part of white Zimbabweans is palpable," he
added. "The current situation, if not addressed in a forthright and definitive
manner, can only do incalculable damage to our quest for a peaceful and stable
Africa."

Equally tough, say delegates, was the contribution from South Africa's minis
ter, fearful of the consequences for his country of the growing number of
Zimbabweans fleeing south.

From South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki, joint initiator with President
Obasanjo of the conference, was watching closely as events unfolded. From
Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was in frequent telephone contact with key
participants.

But it was Mr Obasanjo who intervened at the critical moment. That was when Stan
Mudenge, Zimbabwe's foreign minister and chief negotiator, refused to budge on
whether international monitors would be allowed to observe next year's
presidential elections. The question was left unresolved.

For the country's opposition parties, this is critical. They see the election as
the only constitutional chance of ousting Mr Mugabe. Zimbabwe's president still
hopes that he can win re-election at next April's poll. The question is whether
he has accepted proposals that will guarantee his defeat. In Harare, there were
conflicting reactions. Jonathan Moyo, the normally outspoken and loquacious
informa tion minister, was uncharacteristically tongue-tied, referring all
questions to Mr Mudenge. That suggests that in the absence of Mr Mugabe, who is
in Libya, no firm government line had been agreed.

Mr Mudenge reiterated that provided the donor community came forward with
"adequate resources" to enable the government to take over land, there would be
no need for the "policy of desperation" of land occupations. Significantly, he
made no reference to the stringent conditions of the agreement, focusing only on
the British offer to fund the programme.

Opposition spokesmen are not hiding their scepticism. Prof Ncube was surprised
that the British government had agreed to a statement in which Mr Mugabe "gives
nothing to ensure that there will be a return to the rule of law". Mr Ncube
believes the government will not abide by the agreement, since that would be
tantamount to political suicide.

Political analysts support this, pointing out that Mr Mugabe's re-election
campaign depends on the support of the militant war veteran wing of the ruling
Zanu-PF party and on the promise of land-for-votes". Strict observance of the
Abuja agreement would put paid to both, they say.

Tendayi Biti, the MDC's shadow minister of foreign affairs, notes that the
opposition sees the absence of any specific reference to free and fair elections
in the Abuja agreement as a grave weakness. Yesterday the MDC demanded the
establishment of an independent electoral commission to run the presidential
elections scheduled for March 2002, equal access to the public media for all
parties, a revamped voters roll and free access for foreign observers and
monitors.

But the question was fudged in Abuja. Commonwealth foreign ministers have been
invited to visit Zimbabwe, and Mr Obasanjo has privately pledged that he will
personally pursue the matter with Mr Mugabe. But the monitoring issue has not
been spelt out and could yet prove a serious flaw.

Nor is there any reference to the immunity Mr Mugabe may be seeking from
prosecution for alleged human rights violations. "The past is past," said one
delegate, while another acknowledged that any attempt to indict Mr Mugabe would
get little support within Commonwealth ranks - provided of course, Mr Mugabe
kept his side of the bargain.

Mr Mugabe can argue that Britain has conceded that it has responsibility for
funding the land re-settlement programme he claims is at the heart of the crisis
by agreeing to "make a significant financial contribution."

Delegates believe that Mr Straw hinted at more money than has been pledged, but
acknowledged that no sum was mentioned. Should the agreement break down,
however, one can be sure that Zimbabwe will claim that Britain has nevertheless
broken the spirit of the agreement, if not the letter.

All these issues were acknowledged by the delegations as they left Abuja
yesterday. What happens in Zimbabwe is critical.

"We have done the impossible in a day," said one tired official late on Thursday
night: "miracles take longer".

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 28, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

Zimbabwe will be allowed to import maize to avert food crisis

BYLINE: By NICOL DEGLI INNOCENTI

SECTION: AFRICA & INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 312 words

DATELINE: JOHANNESBURG

Countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have agreed to
allow Zimbabwe to import maize from South Africa and avert a looming food
crisis.

The decision was reached at a SADC meeting in Harare at the weekend. The idea is
for South Africa not to "sell its surplus maize to people outside the region",
Joseph Made, the Zimbabwean agriculture minister, said in an interview
yesterday.

Zimbabwe would import at least 100,000 tonnes of maize, the local staple, from
South Africa, Mr Made said, which would be stored until April next year, when
the country's stocks are expected to run out.

However, local observers say Zimbabwe will need at least 600,000 tonnes of maize
to feed its population. Agricultural production has been severely affected by
the invasions of commercial farms by so-called war veterans and by the campaign
of violence against opposition supporters.

The announcement that Zimbabwe will import maize is seen as an attempt by the
ruling Zanu-PF party to prevent food riots and shore up support for President
Robert Mugabe in advance of a crucial presidential election to be held next
year. Mr Mugabe has denied Zimbabwe is facing food shortages.

Simba Makoni, the finance minister, has admitted that Zimbabwe would need to
import food but had not budgeted for the extra expense. It is still unclear how
the cash-strapped government will pay for the maize imports, unless fuel donated
by Libya has suddenly freed up funds.

South Africa and Mozambique are the only SADC countries expected to have a maize
surplus this year.

The other nine countries in the area have warned of serious cereal shortages
because of extensive flooding. Zimbabwe is the only country where agricultural
production has been hampered by politically motivated violence and not by the
weather. For more reports see www.ft.com/globaleconomy www.ft.com/mideastafrica

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 27, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Libya to supply Zimbabwe fuel

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 24 words

Libya to supply Zimbabwe fuel

Libya has come to the aid of Zimbabwe with a one-year deal to supply fuel, the
Harare government said. Page 5

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 27, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Libya in Zimbabwe oil supply deal

BYLINE: By TONY HAWKINS

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 322 words

DATELINE: HARARE

Libya has come to the aid of Zimbabwe with a one-year deal to supply 70 per cent
of the country's fuel requirements, according to the government in Harare.

However, details of the deal are hazy, as has been the case with virtually all
the emergency fuel import arrangements over the past two years.

The Libya Arab Foreign Bank is providing a Dollars 90m (Pounds 63m) revolving
line of credit on a quarterly basis, which officials say is part of a broader
agreement covering the barter of Zimbabwe exports for Libyan oil and investment
in Zimbabwe by Libyan businesses. The first fuel to be imported under the deal
is due to be sold in Zimbabwe this week.

The import deal between the state-owned National Oil Company of Zimbabwe
(Noczim) and Libya's Tamoil is said to be "in exchange for investments and
ownership of oil storage facilities and downstream distribution networks in
Zimbabwe".

Edward Chindori-Chininga, Zimbabwe's mines and energy minister, said the deal
was in response to last month's brief visit to Zimbabwe by Muammar Gadaffi, the
Libyan leader. He said the balance of Zimbabwe's fuel requirements would
continue to be imported from Kuwait and from South Africa's Engen group.

It is the second such loan from the Libya Arab Foreign Bank, which provided a
Dollars 60m oil import facility in 1999. The most significant element of the
agreement is the suggestion that Libya will participate in Zimbabwe's
privatisation programme by acquiring some of Noczim's oil storage assets.

The fuel supply situation has improved in the past two months, partly apparently
because of the sharp fall in consumption following June's 70 per cent increase
in petrol and diesel prices.

In the wake of the steep rise in Zimbabwe's inflation rate from 55 per cent in
May to 70 per cent in July, ministers and officials are anxious to reduce the
retail price of petrol. They hope the Libyan deal may pave the way for a modest
price cut.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 24, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

Go-ahead for Lockerbie appeal NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By MARK NICHOLSON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 104 words

Scotland's High Court yesterday granted leave for appeal to the Libyan convicted
of the bombing of the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie in 1988.

Grounds for the appeal were not made public and will be revealed only at the
preliminary hearing, which the court said should be held on October 15 at Kamp
van Zeist, the Scottish court on Dutch soil at which Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed
al-Megrahi was found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing in January. Five Scottish
judges will hear the appeal. The court said the preliminary hearing in October
would cover procedural and administrative matters relating to the appeal. Mark
Nicholson

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 24, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

Ten years after, Ukrainians weigh the achievements of independence: Behind the
military parades, politicians see modest progress and critics see missed
opportunities, reports Tom Warner:

BYLINE: By TOM WARNER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 807 words

Tanks have been rolling through the centre of the Ukrainian capital Kiev every
night this week, ahead of today's celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of
the country's independence from the former Soviet Union. But for Anatoly
Artemenko, a veteran of the campaign for an independent Ukraine, the
militaristic tone is a disappointment.

"A big military parade is no sign of a strong, independent country," says Mr
Artemenko, who now works as a freelance television producer and cameraman. "This
is what they do in places like Libya and North Korea."

Today's parade will be the biggest display of Soviet-style military pomp seen in
Kiev since Moscow was running the show. But many ordinary Ukrainians would agree
with Mr Artemenko that the military bombast is at odds with their own experience
of the country's less than glorious performance over the past 10 years.

President Leonid Kuchma readily admits that life since independence has not
lived up to Ukrainians' aspirations, although he suggests that some of those
hopes may have been overly optimistic. "We were let out of a zoo. So if you want
France or England, excuse me," the president told a special session of
parliament on Wednesday.

Despite its economic collapse in the 1990s, Mr Kuchma said Ukraine had laid to
rest questions about its viability as an independent state. Since his
re-election in 1999, state finances have improved sharply, a point underscored
with a lavish reconstruction of Kiev's Independence Square, completed just in
time for the day's events. An economic recovery is in full swing, with growth in
gross domestic product hitting 10.5 per cent in January-July.

But disaffected critics like Mr Artemenko see mostly missed opportunities, and
argue that Ukraine's potential was at least equal to that of Poland. He worries
that Ukraine could yet end up controlled by "Russia and black Russian money".

"It's as difficult as ever to say what Ukraine is and what Ukraine will be," he
says, placing the blame on the continuing political role of former communist
leaders such as Mr Kuchma.

A newly appointed prime minister, Anatoly Kinakh, is the first who had no
position in the Soviet elite. A former shipyard engineer, Mr Kinakh says he and
many others who entered politics by running against the Communist party in
Ukraine's first elections suffered from "economic romanticism" and
underestimated the difficulty of developing a new management elite.

To be fair to Mr Kuchma, Ukraine's economy was already a wreck when he took over
in 1994.

The population, impoverished by years of hyperinflation, was naturally inclined
to blame the limited liberalisation of the economy for their plight.

Small business, which has seen the most liberalisation under Mr Kuchma - and
which is also best able to dodge lingering state interference - has enjoyed the
steadiest and most visible growth. Agriculture suffered severely during Mr
Kuchma's first term, but is now bouncing back after sweeping privatisation last
year.

Sustained growth, however, will depend on Ukraine's ability to renew its ageing
industrial base, and here the outlook is cloudiest. Steel and other base
industries have been booming since last year, driving industrial production up
20 per cent in January-July.

But market forces are only partly in play, with practically all big business
controlled by rival political groups. Few plants have undertaken the broad
restructuring they need to stay competitive in the long term, and the rare
changes in top management usually follow a political rather than economic logic.

Ukraine has lost its former position as a centre of machine-building, as most
plants failed to adjust to world markets after cold war military orders dried
up.

Even worse, the industrial infrastructure - everything from roads and train
lines to water, sewage, power stations and gas pipelines - has seen almost
complete neglect, which looms like a colossal debt on future governments.

"It can't be said that Ukraine's first decade was successful," says Leonid
Kravchuk, who led parliament during the 1991 independence vote and later became
the country's first president. "We all could have done better."

Opposition politicians, however, accuse Mr Kravchuk and Mr Kuchma of having done
well for themselves, their friends and their families while the country as a
whole suffered.

Mr Kuchma's international reputation has been damaged by a scandal last winter
in which he was accused of ordering the murder of a journalist. His domestic
approval ratings have sunk below 4 per cent, and most Ukrainians are already
looking past him and worrying about who might replace him.

The president, however, remains fully in control of the levers of state power.
Analysts expect him to favour a centrist coalition dominated by pro-Russian
industrialists in next spring's parliamentary elections.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 15, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Jungle proves hot spot for international terrorism: Sandra Hernandez in Bogota
and John Murray Brown in Dublin report on links between the IRA and Colombian
rebels

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 673 words

The image of three Irishmen in training camps in the South American jungle might
seem like something out of a Harrison Ford thriller.

But the arrest of the three IRA suspects is a reminder of the international
links between the world's most feared terrorist groups.

The three men, who have been accused of teaching Colombian rebels how to make
bombs, spent much of five weeks in warm, tropical heartland of the Colombian
Revolutionary Armed Forces, known as FARC.

They were allegedly taken from the small airport in San Vicente del Caguan to
Macarena, a small town about 100 kilometers away.

It was here that James Monaghan, Martin McCauley and a third man spent five
weeks training the rebels in the use and fabrication of homemade bombs and
mortars, according to army officials.

The news comes more than a month after one of the Colombian rebel leaders
announced they would step up their urban attacks.

FARC has increasingly used mortars and cylinder bombs in their attacks on police
and army stations, including an attack on Arbelaez, a small town located less
than an hour from the capital city of Bogota.

The three men are believed to have taught several courses on the use of the
mortars at a rebel school in Macarena, according to officials.

The news touched off fear of a new era of bomb attacks in the South American
country similar to those that took place during the era of Pablo Escobar, the
infamous leader of Medellin's cocaine gang.

Colombia's President Andres Pastrana has not publicly commented on the arrests
but it has raised concerns over the future of the haven, where the rebel's
operate unchallenged by Colombian authorities.

Mr Pastrana created the demilitarised zone in 1998 as part of his peace efforts
with the FARC. The zone is the size of Switzerland has increasing come under
fire and rebels are accused of using it to train for attacks.

The IRA's international links are well known to security forces.

Its main foreign backer in the 1980s was Libya's General Gadaffi, who is
believed to have supplied the bulk of its 2 tonnes of semtex and other weaponry.

It is understood the IRA's entree to the Colombian rebels was made through Eta,
the Basque separatists with whom the republican movement, at a political and a
military level, has strong links.

The suggestion that the men were paid for their services in cocaine would come
as little surprise to intelligence officials in Northern Ireland where the IRA
and indeed most of the paramilitary groups have been heavily involved in the
lucrative business of drugs.

But clearly any confirmation of an IRA Colombian link would be a major political
embarrassment to the Sinn Fein leadership, which has used the peace process to
cultivate its image of respectability, winning the confidence of leading Irish
American politicians and business people.

"I just wonder what the republican movement's American businessmen backers think
of these guys out in the jungle with a Marxist organisation that draws its
resources from drugs which in turn poison the young people in America . . . I
just wonder what their supporters there are to make of this," said Sir Reg
Empey, the Ulster Unionist acting first minister of the power sharing assembly.

Coincidentally Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, is due to leave for a
lecture tour in Latin America in the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday news agencies were circulating a photograph of Mr Adams, with one of
the suspects at his shoulder.

Details of the suspects began to emerge yesterday. One of the three men survived
a controversial shooting in November l982 when his friend was killed after RUC
officers opened fire at a hayshed in Co Armagh.

Martin McCauley, from Lurgan, Co Armagh - believed to be one of the IRA's top
explosives experts - was wounded in the attack by an RUC anti-terrorist unit.

Mr McCauley later received a five figure sum in compensation after claiming he
was the victim of a "shoot to kill" attack.

James Monaghan from Co Donegal, is known to be a senior member of the republican
movement.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 14, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 2

US fails to win Russia over on missile defence

BYLINE: By ANDREW JACK

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 418 words

DATELINE: MOSCOW

Russia and the US yesterday stuck to their contradictory positions on the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty while attempting to broaden their discussions to
wider defence-related issues.

During top level talks in Moscow with Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of
defence, yesterday, senior Russian officials maintained their stance that the
ABM treaty should remain the cornerstone of arms control.

However President Vladimir Putin welcomed continued discussions with the US,
stressing the linkage of defensive and offensive nuclear systems, and calling
for clarifications on lower thresholds for nuclear weapons.

Mr Rumsfeld, on his first visit to Russia since taking up his position, stressed
that the ABM treaty was out-dated, but also argued that his objective during
talks was broader than simply discussing President George W. Bush's planned
National Missile Defence system.

Moscow regards the system as a threat to the ABM treaty. Yesterday Mr Putin
stressed that Moscow considers the ABM treaty as closely linked to the Start 1
and Start 2 arms reduction treaties.

"The ABM treaty inhibits the kind of research and development and testing that
the US is engaged in," Mr Rumsfeld said, adding that it wanted a system which
could defend not only the US but "our friends and allies and deployed forces".

He said that within one or two months the US would be able to indicate how far
it would be willing to cut its nuclear warheads.

The current Start 2 treaty would cut the arsenals of each country by half to
about 3,500 warheads, but Russia has been arguing for deeper cuts still.

Asked if he had been persuaded that the ABM treaty was no longer necessary,
Sergei Ivanov, Russia's minister of defence, said: "I'm afraid not ... The
existing multi-layered system of strategic security . . . fully meets the needs
of Russia."

Mr Rumsfeld reiterated that the US did not consider Russia to be a threat and
argued that international agreements - such as the ABM treaty - were not even
necessary between allied nations with shared values.

However, in a discussion with Russian journalists in the morning, he said the US
continued to believe in the threat of weapons from "rogue states", specifically
citing the case of North Korea. He also mentioned Iran, Iraq and Libya, saying
the US had evidence of the adaptation of ballistic missiles with
intercontinental range by such countries, and of ballistic missiles which had
been armed with nuclear, biological and chemical warheads. Editorial Comment,
Page 14

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 8, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Separatists in Philippines sign ceasefire

BYLINE: By ROEL LANDINGIN

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 351 words

DATELINE: MANILA

The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the
largest Muslim separatist group, signed a ceasefire agreement yesterday in
Malaysia.

The pact is expected to bring 30 years of Islamic insurgency in the southern
Philippine island of Mindanao closer to an end. The MILF and other rebel groups
have been fighting for an independent state for the Philippines' Muslim
minority, who comprise a quarter of the Christian-dominated island.

"We hope the agreement will translate immediately into peace on the ground,"
said Roilo Golez, national security adviser.

The agreement, signed by representatives of the Philippine government and the
MILF, was later presented to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is paying a
three-day visit to Malaysia, and Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysian prime minister.

The signing of the ceasefire accord leaves the Abu Sayyaf extremists as the only
Muslim rebel group fighting the government. The group still holds 21 hostages,
including an American missionary couple, in the southern Philippine island of
Basilan. Another Muslim separatist group, the Moro National Liberation Front,
signed a peace agreement in 1996.

Yesterday's deal, signed after days of negotiations, built on a preliminary
accord agreed in Libya but officials said that further negotiations were
required to reach the final peace agreement.

Observers are hoping the participation of the Libyan and Malaysian governments
will give the peace initiative a better chance of succeeding. A 1997 ceasefire
pact was broken last year when Joseph Estrada, the former Philippine president
who was ousted amid a corruption scandal in January, ordered military offensives
against the Muslim separatists.

This time, a co-ordinating committee to administer the ceasefire has been agreed
and monitoring will be conducted by members of the Organisation of the Islamic
Conference.

Mrs Macapagal, who is visiting Kuala Lumpur for three days, chose Malaysia for
her first official visit overseas since taking power in January to thank Dr
Mahathir for his government's role in assisting the peace talks.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 8, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Caribbean aid call to Libya NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By CANUTE JAMES

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 110 words

DATELINE: KINGSTON

Caribbean aid call to Libya

Leaders of five Caribbean countries this week are concluding arrangements for an
official visit to Libya later this month to seek financial assistance, amid
concerns they could be penalised by the US and other countries that have
ostracised the North African country.

The prime ministers of Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis and St Vincent
say they need assistance for their small, weak economies, and that aid from
traditional sources has been significantly reduced.

The governments say aid for the Caribbean from the US totalled Dollars 120m last
year, just over half of what it was a decade ago. Canute James, Kingston

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 4, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Echoes and the Northumbrian magpie men: The year's Womad festival was billed as
a sound clash between fusion and authenticity: David Honigmann is won over by
both sides

BYLINE: By DAVID HONIGMANN

SECTION: ARTS ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 1058 words

The BBC, asponsor through Radio 3, talked up the Womad Festival in Reading as a
clash between genre-bending fusion and austere authenticity. Fusion started
shakily with a bizarre collaboration. Nuclearte, a new wave band from Sicily,
set Etna-voiced Rossana Filippone against clattering industrial synthesisers.
Behind them, Imbizo, a choir from Bulawayo, were reduced to an incongruous
synchronised jive. Only for one moment, when Nuclearte's keyboards fell silent
and Imbizo wheezed and hissed like antique machinery as Filippone sang, was it
possible to hear the full potential.

The nadir for fusion followed. The Soweto String Quartet, so safe that their CDs
are fixtures on every coffee table in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, took
on one of the world's most exciting musical forms, South African jive, and
systematically sucked the life out of it. The medley from Paul Simon's Graceland
would have made a Muzak programmer blush.

Refugees from this ended up at a set from Kazufumi "Echo" Kodama, melancholy
trumpet against dub as dry and heavy as a revving motorcycle. Visually, this was
as interesting as a watching a nest of hackers tinker with laptops, but the
waves of sound massaged the audience with noisy serenity.

Late at night on Friday two contrasting groups redeemed the day. "We,"
proclaimed double-bassist Lloyd Brevett, "are the original Skatalites", which
will have come as news to Don Drummond, who died in an asylum in 1969 after
murdering his girlfriend, or to Jackie Mittoo, Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso,
all also dead. But the elder statesmen of ska retained all their star quality.
"Independent Anniversary Ska" rearranged Lennon and McCartney's "I Should Have
Known Better" into a shuffling, horn-laden celebration, and it was as easy to
hear ska reaching backwards to swing as to hear it pushing forwards into reggae.

Tinariwen are Touareg nomads from the Sahara desert who first met in Colonel
Gadaffi's training camps in Libya. Triple electric guitars may not be
traditional Touareg instruments, but they seemed it. The sound was screwed to a
severe torque, tight repetitive guitar phrases set against precision clapping.
The only brightening came from sharp ululation from the women singers. Clad in
white robes and concealed behind deep purple head-dresses, the band took their
applause with ghostly impassivity. Haunting and intense, it was perfect for a
hot night.

More authenticity came from the Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali, who performed
cross-legged on a raised platform covered with white cloth, the two eponymous
nephews of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan flanked by harmonium players gently pumping
their instruments by opening and closing the lids, and a second row exploding in
handclaps. Uncut qawwali can sound unapproachably alien, and the audience duly
clapped a sound-check. But when the group soared full-throttle into "Allah Ho Ya
Rehman", there were few unbelievers left.

Authentically Northumbrian, though skilled musical magpies, Tarras opened
Saturday afternoon facing a crowd larger than they were used to. "How many
people are here?" asked the singer, Ben Murray. "I want to tell me mam."

"Get on with it, it's not pantomime" murmured a woman with a cut-glass accent,
and it seemed that Tarras's earnestness might fall flat. But a passionate "Oakey
Strike Evictions", the energetic stomping jig of "The Russian" and the slow
rockabilly strut of "Ye Mariners", ending with Jon Redfern and Joss Clapp
duelling on guitars, won everyone over. The violinist, Louise Peacock, powered a
series of jigs and reels, ending with a flourish on "Men Should Wear Their Long
Hair Down".

Cuba came in two flavours: the slick, stagnant authenticity of the Afro- Cuban
All Stars and the experimentation of Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez. Standing with a
double-bass, occasionally pattering on its side with his fingers in response to
Miguel Ang Daz, his conga player, Cachaito was the still centre of a storm. This
was Cuba with the sonic explorations of Jamaica; falling into a groove, then
halting, fading, mutating into something stranger. Biggie Morrison's organ riffs
slipped into "Jesu Joy Of Man's Desiring"; Pee Wee Ellis's saxophone swooped
effortlessly up the scales to find itself topped by ethereal vocals from Magic
Malik. The audience held its breath.

Two contrasting highlights on Sunday. The quieter came in a workshop, when
Cheikh Lo, who had played a crowded, busy Saturday night set, gave a workshop on
Senegalese guitar and percussion. "Encore une?" pleaded the moderator, and with
a ripple of guitar, Lo launched into "Ne Le Thiass", with only Samba Diaye's
talking drum singing softly along with him.

The other was the Orchestre National de Barbe s, a collective based in the Paris
quartier that is a Mecca for bargain hunters, pickpockets, record collectors
interested in North Africa, and immigrants from the Maghreb. Youcef Boukella had
welded 10 of the latter into a tight rock 'n' rai band. ONB started lined up at
the front, swaying gently as all 10 sang "Mimouna", then exploded into life,
Antoine Illouz's trumpet flashing against the percussion.

As Mehdi Askeur sang "Zawiya" to the sound of a dulcimer, front man Fatah
Benlala waved his giant hand drum as if panning for gold. By the time they
finished, on "Alaoui", punching hand drums with algebraic precision, notions of
authenticity were beside the point: all their influences had fused into
something richly distinctive.

The threatened thunder never arrived, and for a while it seemed as if this might
be true of the music as well: the Cambridge Folk Festival and another Womad in
Seattle had spread the big names in roots music thin. But the absence of more
than a few guaranteed crowd-pleasers opened up more of the temporary autonomous
zones in which Womad specialises: unexpected spaces that burst briefly into
flower.

Even the Holiday Inn next to the festival grounds was not immune. Rwandan and
Malian road managers tried to keep their bands' drums from intermingling. Over
the breakfast bar, a wiry Japanese dub posse jostled with a random assortment of
brass players. Cheikh Lo noodled dreamily on a grand piano. And upstairs,
Armenian virtuoso Djivan Gasparyan obsessively practiced his duduk, a plaintive
double-reeded apricot wood oboe whose sad song stilled even the saxophone honk
of the swans on the Thames outside.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 4, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

An exhilarating 1,500-mile journey by camel: BOOKSHELF: Michael Thompson-Noel
traces an expedition across some of the most inhospitable terrain in the wake of
a 19th c

BYLINE: By MICHAEL THOMPSON-NOEL

SECTION: TRAVEL ; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 546 words

Books that are worth reading often possess outstanding opening paragraphs - a
category into which Justin Marozzi's excellentSouth From Barbary: Along The
Slave Routes Of The Libyan Sahara (HarperCollins, Pounds 17.99) fits with silky
ease.

This is his first paragraph: "'Help me with this camel,' said Abd al Wahab,
while Ned and I were busily applying Elizabeth Arden Visible Difference Eight
Hour Cream to our faces. Abd al Wahab, our guide, understood camels. They were
part of his world. Moisturiser was not. Hastily we packed it away, put the
finishing touches to the last camel load, and marched off into the desert. We
were under way."

In many ways, South From Barbary is the perfect travel book: an exhilarating
journey - 1,500 miles by camel in the wake of early 19th century British
explorers and campaigners against the slave trade, across some of the most
inhospitable terrain on earth - described with panache in a way that does
justice both to the beauty of the Sahara and to the cause that Marozzi recounts:
the campaign to end "the most gigantic form of wickedness the world ever saw".

It was his father, he says, who took him to Tripoli for the first time, in 1992.
Before they left they visited one of Tripoli's few English-language bookshops,
where the son picked up the book that for the first time thrust the Sahara at
him in all its guises: silence, loneliness, glorious skies, plains of sand and
rock, loyalty, adventure, treachery, betrayal.

The book was an account of the 1818-20 expedition into the Libyan Sahara led by
Joseph Ritchie, who had been given the task of charting the River Niger. Ritchie
came to a sticky end but, reading his adventures, Marozzi "felt the pull of the
desert and started to dream of a similar journey by camel".

It takes a talented journalist to get modern-day Libya just right, and Marozzi
has all the qualities: observant, shrewd, patient and exceedingly well attuned
to the wackiness and eccentricity that lurk just beneath the surface of a state
presided over by Colonel Gadaffi.

Early on, for example, amid the deathlike stillness of Ghadames, one of the most
evocative oases in the Sahara, a guide tells Marozzi that Ghadames is 2,000
years old, or 5,000 or 12,000. "I have been on government tourist course," says
the man. "This is what they told us to tell the tourists: 2,000, 5,000 or 12,000
years (old)."

Estimates, says Marozzi, suggest that about 2m black slaves were exported to
North Africa and the Middle East during the 19th century, of which 1m came from
the Upper Nile and Ethiopia and 350,000 or so from East Africa. The remaining
650,000 were hauled across the Sahara from Sudan. These figures are dwarfed, he
says, by the number of slaves exported to the US from West Africa during that
period.

It is a measure of Marozzi's skill that he handles the big themes of history and
the small irritations of third-millennium camel-travel - waiting for his tea,
doing the washing-up, bickering with Ned, his travelling companion - with equal
charm and felicity.

Another good book of sand and strife is Jeremy Keenan's Sahara Man (John Murray,
Pounds 18.99), in which Keenan, an authority on the Berbers of the central
Sahara, goes in search of the Tuareg nomads of southern Algeria with whom he
lived.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 1, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Ruhrgas dominance in Germany faces challenge ENERGY ENI AND EnbW MOVE IN:

BYLINE: By THOMAS FROMM and OLAF PREUSS

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE EUROPE ; Pg. 26

LENGTH: 353 words

Eni, the partly state-owned Italian oil and gas group, and Energie
Baden-Wurttemberg (EnbW), Germany's third-biggest electricity supplier, are set
to challenge Ruhrgas's dominance of the German gas market.

Eni and EnBW have agreed to take a majority stake in Gasversorgung
Suddeutschland (GVS), a regional gas supplier in southern Germany.

It is believed that Eni plans to supply gas from Algeria and Libya to the German
market through GVS, which gets most of its supplies from Ruhrgas.

The move would also expand the interests of Electricite de France, the
state-owned utility, in Germany through its 34.5 per cent stake in EnBW. EnBW
has only a small gas business in Germany, thereby challenging Ruhrgas, so far
the dominating player on the German gas market.

Eni and EnBW have agreed to buy 25 per cent of GVS shares from the
Baden-Wurttemberg government and 33.4 per cent from Neckarwerke Stuttgart. They
plan to set up a holding company to administer the resulting majority holding of
58.3 per cent.

There are, however, two potential obstacles to the deal. Firstly, MVV Energie, a
rival of EnBW owns 26.25 per cent of GVS and has pre-emption over the other
shares.

"If somebody wants to change the share ownership, they have to talk to us first.
This has not happened so far," said MVV Energie.

Another hurdle could be regional politics. Erwin Teufel, Baden-Wurttemberg's
conservative prime minster, has said he is happy with EnBW and Eni taking over
the majority of GVS, but his economics minister, Walter Doering from the liberal
FDP, has demanded an open auction.

So far, GVS receives 85 per cent of its gas supplies from Ruhrgas and 15 per
cent from Wingas, a subsidiary from BASF and Gazprom, the Russian energy giant.
Supply contracts with both companies run until 2015.

It is assumed that, after acquiring the majority of GVS, Eni and EnBW will
challenge these contracts legally in order to pave the way for Algerian and
Lybian gas produced by ENI's subsidiary Agip.

Similar contracts were overturned in the courts after the German electricity
market was liberalised to promote competition. www.ft.com/

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 31, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

French bank gives Iran credits worth up to Dollars 1bn

BYLINE: By VICTOR MALLET

SECTION: MIDDLE-EAST & THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 491 words

DATELINE: PARIS

Credit Agricole Indosuez (CAI), part of France's largest bank, yesterday became
the latest French company to deepen its involvement in Iran as European
investors continue to benefit from US antipathy to the Islamic government in
Tehran.

CAI said it had signed a framework agreement with Iran's five largest
state-owned banks to provide multi-source buyer credits - facilities for buyers
of exports from various European countries - worth up to Dollars 1bn (Pounds
702m).

The previous CAI limit was Dollars 700m.

The agreement is guaranteed by the Iranian Ministry of the Economy and Finance
and by European export credit agencies.

SG, the investment banking arm of Societe Generale, another French bank,
announced a similar deal last week, also for Dollars 1bn, with Bank Mellat, Bank
Melli, Bank Saderat, Bank Sepah and Bank Tejarat.

The French banks are helping to finance European exports of equipment,
especially for the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, but also for industry
and infrastructure development.

"The interest of European companies is rising," Michel Perrin, the CAI
international finance executive responsible for Iran and Turkey, said yesterday.

"The financial situation of Iran today is exceptionally good. Oil receipts are
rising and they are managing the economy better."

Among the Iranian contracts cited by CAI are those for Alstom, the French
transport company that is selling 100 locomotives; Technip, the oil and
petrochemical services group; and Nokia, the telecommunications equipment maker.

Last week, the US Congress overwhelmingly voted to extend legislation that
provides for sanctions against non-US companies that make big petroleum industry
investments in Iran or Libya, on the grounds that the two countries have
supported international terrorism.

President George W. Bush is expected to sign it in spite of his administration's
belief that such unilateral measures are ineffective and inflexible, and can
damage the interests of US corporations.

US oil companies are barred from Iran and are watching with growing irritation
as their international competitors pile into the market.

Under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, the US president is allowed to punish
foreign companies that invest more than Dollars 20m in oil or gas development in
either country. But no company has actually been penalised since it came into
effect five years ago.

In 1998, the Clinton administration even granted a special waiver to a Dollars
2bn oil investment by a consortium that included Total of France, now
TotalFinaElf, in order to avert a row with Europe.

Eni, the Italian energy group, is the latest European company to risk falling
foul of the US law.

US officials say they have mentioned their concerns to Eni and the Italian
government, but it is not clear if anything will be done.

As one French investor with interests in Iran said yesterday: "In the end, I
think that the US authorities have turned a blind eye."

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 27, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

US to extend sanctions on Libya and Iran

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: THE AMERICAS, AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 306 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The US is poised to extend for another five years a controversial sanctions law
designed to prevent foreign companies from investing in Iran and Libya.

The House of Representatives yesterday followed the Senate in voting
overwhelmingly to extend the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which expires next month.

Under the act, the US can punish foreign companies that invest more than Dollars
20m in oil or gas development in either country.

The decision is a big setback for the Bush administration, which launched a
review of US sanctions policies as one of its first initiatives after taking
office. Administration officials have argued that US sanctions are too often
ineffective and needlessly hurt US companies, but the administration was unable
to mount any effective effort to persuade Congress.

While the law has been in place since 1996, the US has waived the sanctions in
the single case where it determined that foreign oil companies were defying the
investment ban.

The House version, which passed by a 409-6 vote, offered a small concession to
the administration by agreeing to allow a review of the law after two years. If
the administration determines that it has been ineffective, it may issue a
report to Congress and Congress may consider lifting the law at that time. The
administration had favoured a two-year extension of the bill rather than five
years.

The Senate bill, which passed on a 96-2 vote late on Wednesday, provides for no
such review, but the House version is expected to be the final one approved.

Iran's government yesterday denounced the US decision, saying the measures
contradicted international norms and trade relations, according to the official
Iranian news agency.

"The use of sanctions as a foreign policy tool is outdated and futile," Tehran
said. For regional reports, www.ft.com/mideastafrica

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 26, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 2

Bush cool on trying to improve relations with Iran: US oil groups are unhappy at
the White House's lack of effort in resuming ties, write Carola Hoyos andGuy
Dinmore

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE and CAROLA HOYOS

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 792 words

When Mohammad Khatami came to the United Nations last September, Madeleine
Albright was so keen to shake the Iranian president's hand that it took a rather
athletic lunge by a more cautious diplomat to keep the then US secretary of
state from taking things too far.

Observers expected President George W. Bush to be even more enthusiastic than
his predecessors about improving relations with Iran. But the new administration
is putting little energy into overturning Washington's controversial ban on
economic relations with the country as the August 5 deadline approaches for
Congress to renew the sanctions.

"US companies with an interest in Iran, in particular the energy companies, feel
the administration has missed an opportunity to send a positive message to the
Iranian government for improving commercial relations. They are not pleased with
this administration," says John Radsan, director of the Eurasia Group, which
advocates closer Iranian/US business ties.

Oil executives from companies such as Conoco and Chevron had high hopes that the
energy sector background of Mr Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney would prompt
a resumption of US business ties with Iran, which has the world's fifth largest
proven oil reserves. Mr Cheney was an especially vocal opponent of sanctions
against Iran during the five years he headed Halliburton, an oil services
company.

But in their new role, two factors in particular have limited their willingness
to soften their stance on Iran: Russia and Israel. After Mr Khatami's visit to
Moscow in March, Russia said it would sell billions of dollars worth of weapons
to Iran and again rejected US demands that it cancel the Dollars 800m contract
to finish the nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

In Israel, the change in government has made US rapprochement with Iran much
more difficult, analysts say.

Washington is not receiving much help from Iran either. Reformists grouped
around Mr Khatami are in too weak a position to overcome objections from
hardline clerics and take the initiative in relations with the US.

The furthest they can go has been expressed by Kamal Kharrazi, the country's
foreign minister, who has said Iran would reciprocate any change in US policy
but would not take the first step.

Diplomats in Tehran say Mr Khatami has neither the authority, nor possibly even
the inclination, to address Washington's prime concerns: Iran's support for
Palestinian groups opposed to the existence of Israel and its own weapons
programme.

In such a climate, Congress is unlikely to make any drastic changes to the Iran
Libya Sanctions Act (Ilsa) which is designed to curb foreign investment in the
oil and gas sectors of both countries. The act allows the president to impose
penalties on any foreign company that invests more than Dollars 20m in the
energy industry of either country.

The House and Senate are considering three possibilities - a two-year extension,
a five-year extension and a five-year extension with an 18-month review period.

The White House supports a two-year extension but its lobbying efforts have
hardly been felt on Capitol Hill. More palpable has been the pressure from the
American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the Jewish lobbying group, which is
pushing for a five-year extension.

Even if Congress renews Ilsa for five years, analysts say it would not hinder
the White House's ability to change the executive orders imposed by President
Bill Clinton in 1995 that bar virtually all business with Iran.

Despite promising a policy review on Iran by June and openly questioning the
effectiveness of sanctions in general, the Bush administration has put missile
defence and domestic oil exploration ahead of Iran.

"They have taken no steps that might in any way undercut their objectives. They
have to justify National Missile Defence with the Iran threat and they are
focusing on US (oil) production and don't want to undercut that domestic push,"
says Gary Sick, director of Columbia University's Middle East Centre.

By signing agreements with Italian and Japanese oil companies in recent weeks -
and with further deals with Spanish and Australian oil concerns expected soon -
Tehran has demonstrated that the sanctions threat by Ilsa against non-US
companies carry little weight.

Meanwhile, Europe's cautious dialogue with Iran on issues such as weapons of
mass destruction and human rights has also left the US isolated politically.

But improving ties with Iran is not straight forward. If Washington supports Mr
Khatami too openly, it risks damaging the reform movement by association.

But taking the opposite approach plays into the hands of hardliners, who are
happy to maintain the status quo. For regional reports, www.ft.com/mideastafrica
www.ft.com/americas

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 24, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

Energy plan dims

SECTION: LEADER ; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 423 words

President George W. Bush's energy plan already looks as if it will run into the
tar sands of Capitol Hill. This is partly because falling energy prices have
lessened the US's sense of an energy crisis. But it is also because the plan is
widely seen to be flawed by its over-emphasis on production rather than
conservation. This is costing Mr Bush vital support among Republican moderates.

Oil prices have now fallen to the point that the Opec cartel is considering a
further cut in output. US production of oil and natural gas has inched up in
response to recent high prices. And far from the lights still going out in
California, the state has this month been selling excess power that it had
bought in a panic. The golden state is still suffering from a fundamental energy
imbalance but it has benefited from a coolish summer so far.

In the absence of a crisis, Congress is dismembering the Bush energy package,
giving the oil industry more in tax exemptions than was proposed but less in
other ways. The oil lobby has run up against those congressmen who take a
tougher line than the administration on renewing US sanctions on investment in
oil-producing Iran and Libya. The administration has clashed with senior
citizens and others in Florida, including Jeb Bush, the governor and brother of
the president, who want to restrict drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. And
farmers, who want ethanol to continue to be used in Midwest petrol, are opposing
the proposal to set uniform national fuel standards.

If the administration is to lift the debate above these special interest
wrangles and to tackle the bigger issues of creating a proper national power
grid and streamlining the planning process for nuclear plants, it needs also to
appeal much more to environmental interests.

It has two opportunities to do this. First it must be more determined to tighten
so-called CAFE fuel efficiency standards on new vehicles. Not only have these
CAFE standards changed little since their introduction in 1975 but they also
allow lower mileage per gallon for light trucks, which now include the
increasingly popular sports and utility vehicles.

Second, the administration must press ahead with the climate change proposals
that it has promised as its alternative to the Kyoto treaty. Such proposals may
not appear credible to the rest of the world, which yesterday endorsed a
modified Kyoto protocol. But they might at least convince the US public that the
administration's energy plans include a serious attempt to promote conservation.

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 21, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Zambia's deadly virus Beset by poverty and debt, Zambia is not even spending the
cash the international community has given it to combat the scourge of HIV. Alan
Beattie explains

BYLINE: By ALAN BEATTIE

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1898 words

This weekend's Group of Eight meeting in Genoa is a foregone conclusion, since
the communique was written weeks ago.

Barring an extraordinary upheaval, it will offer no more debt relief to the
world's poorest countries. There will be warm words on development aid;
governments may again announce contributions to a rather small global HIV fund,
and there will be familiar rhetoric about forcing pharmaceuticals companies to
cut the price of drugs for the world's poor.

Such inaction will be felt thousands of miles away, in countries such as Zambia
beset by three great burdens: debt, poverty and Aids.

Protesters will say the G8 have betrayed countries such as Zambia. But whatever
the shortcomings of the international community, Zambia's government is not even
spending the money it has been given.

Zambia has struggled ever since it gained independence in the 1960s with an
underdeveloped economy, a legacy of colonial rule. Desperately poor and in hock
to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and rich countries by about
Dollars 6bn twice its annual national income Zambia spends a quarter of its
government budget on debt repayments. A fifth of its population is believed to
have HIV. Debt relief will give it an extra Dollars 100m to spend this year,
about 10 per cent of its government budget, half of which is already overseas
aid.

Aid campaigners say this is not enough. But at present, the near-paralysis of
Zambia's government is rendering outside help almost futile.

Evidence of this abounds in Zambia's mining "copperbelt" witness the string of
sprawling settlements scarred with waste heaps and vast open-cast pits. Half the
country's exports are copper, though dreadful mismanagement forced the
state-owned mining company to sell up to foreigners, including the South African
giant Anglo-American, at a knockdown price and with generous tax concessions.

Kitwe, the centre of the copperbelt, is a company town of tidy houses and lawns
surrounded by vast mud-built shanty settlements.

If you had to design an environment where desperate poverty and poor education
conspire to spread HIV, it would look a lot like this. The transient population
(the town is on the trucking route to central Africa), the high pay for miners,
and the thousands of rural Zambians lured in by mining money is a dangerous mix.
Bars frequented by miners are murky but busy especially around pay day at the
end of the month and attract a constant stream of local women selling
themselves.

Peter Sinkamba, a former mining engineer who now runs an environmental campaign
in the copperbelt, says: "There is a problem of culture. Extramarital affairs
are not a big deal."

He adds: "Parents cannot afford the basics for their children so they are
unleashed on to the streets. Where sex becomes a source of family income, you
are going to get Aids."

Sinkamba took me to the Carwash, a rudimentary club set up in a car park by
Kitwe's market, where hover gangs of distressingly young and beautiful women
"small girls" in the local usage, some as young as 13. One tells me she charges
20,000 kwacha (Dollars 5) a time, or 40,000 kwacha for all night. She doesn't
mention condoms, though locals say they are not considered macho by many men,
and prostitutes can charge more for sex without.

Attempts to combat Aids are few and scattered, with government initiatives
largely absent. "No one works together here," says a nurse in a local clinic.
Shortages of drugs mean patients often have to buy their prescribed medicine
privately, or go without.

A drop-in centre, supported by the local Roman Catholic diocese, offers condoms
and counselling; it is testament to the government's feebleness that Catholicism
out-does it in promoting condoms.

Teams of home visitors organised by local churches take food and palliative
drugs to HJV sufferers in their houses, though some quixotically preach
abstinence as the best solution, solemnly assuring me that "condoms cause
prostitution".

No one even knows how many are infected. Aids is never recorded as a cause of
death - only opportunistic infections that deal the killer blow, such as
tuberculosis or malaria. Tim Wadeson the chief executive of Konkola Copper
Mines, Anglo's subsidiary in the copper-belt town of Chingola, seems relieved
that a voluntary workforce screening programme showed only 18 per cent infected.

As for treatment, hardly anyone thinks large-scale Aids drug treatment - the
antiretrovirals about which G8 leaders like to talk - was realistic. "We have
laboratories and doctors in place," says a doctor at KCM. But even after the
high-profile international campaign to reduce the cost of Aids drugs from tens
of thousands of dollars a year to Dollars 1,000 or less, it is still
prohibitive.

Wadeson says: Clearly we can't afford that. At the moment, you could say we
can't afford anything, since the mine is losing money.

Ironically, Zambia spotted the appalling potential of HIV early. The son of
Kenneth Kaunda, the former president, died after contracting Aids in the 1980s.
By 1986, Catholic and Anglican churches came together to tackle the disease.
(Zambia has had a strong Catholic following since 19th century Jesuit
missionaries sheltered locals from slave traders.)

But weak government and a lack of money have hampered progress since then.

For many, it is already too late. Jon Hospice, on the outskirts of the capital
Lusaka, is a neat one-storey building in a bare compound amid a dusty
breeze-block housing settlement, built by a Dutch benefactor.

It provides painkillers and care for patients nearing death. John, a gentle and
frail former motor mechanic from nearby, who has a badly infected leg and has
suffered from malaria, was this week told he is HIV positive. "There is nothing
I can feel, since it has already happened and I have to live with it," he says.
His wife died last October and their daughter is being brought up by her
grandmother. John says poverty spreads the virus.

"Industry is dying, and there are no jobs except working for the government," he
says.

In the women's ward, emaciated bundles of humanity huddle silently under
hospital blankets. Gertrude, the hospice co-ordinator, comforts one patient who
has woken up in a fright. "She had a nightmare that she was dying," she says.

The clinic, supported by private donations, is clean and airy, but holds no more
than 30 patients and is one of only two or three in Lusaka. Civil servants wear
red Aids ribbons, but the National Aids Council set up to co-ordinate a response
has just one senior appointee so far.

Western donors have been slow to help the government until they see a convincing
programme in place: Laurence Clarke, the World Bank's representative in Lusaka,
says a donor round-table meeting last year failed to fill a Dollars 200m funding
gap.

John seems unlikely to live more than a few weeks, but his analysis is
perceptive. Poverty and ignorance are the real killers in Zambia. But in an
economy that contracted by 1 per cent each year in the 1990s, and with the
education system chronically short of funds, there are few ways out.

Many do not even make it to school. Gertrude Sikota, the head of Luano Basic
School in Kapisha, a settlement on the copperbelt, has the air of cheerful
autocracy favoured by successful primary school heads the world over. But her
school is short of money.

She has tried the government's foreign donor-supported basic education programme
but got nowhere: the money, she says, does not seem to make it out of Lusaka.
The school has a new block, funded by the British aid agency Oxfam, but can
still only admit half its applicants.

Formerly, the school charged fees of 10,000 kwacha a term as part of government
policy. "Last year, fees were officially abolished," Sikota says. "But we still
charge 10,000 kwacha a term, because the government grant was only enough to buy
some sports and domestic science equipment." Villages increasingly set up their
own "community schools" to compensate for government failure.

Clarke says: "There appears to be a deliberate attempt to rein in expenditure."
Spending on health and education are 30 per cent behind schedule. An archaic
cash budget system forces departments on monthly begging trips to the finance
ministry. In the words of another western donor, "the government lives
hand-to-mouth".

This day-to-day twitchiness is a national trait, symbolised by Lusaka's
taxi-drivers. Frightened that their bosses will accuse them of profligacy by
ending the day with a full tank of petrol, they fill up with minuscule amounts
each time. No taxi ride lasts more than five minutes without a muttered apology
and a swing into a garage.

But there is more to the government's deadly caution than national habit.
Political instability is threatening the western aid that makes up half of the
Zambian government's budget and supplements it with direct spending elsewhere.

Frederick Chiluba, the president, has alarmed the international community with a
bid to change the constitution to allow himself a third term in office.

Tension is rising. Two weeks ago Paul Tembo, a former member of Chiluba's
political party, was shot dead six hours before he was due to testify at a
corruption inquiry.

Heavily dependent on international donors, ministers seem terrified that their
president's actions will cut off external funding.

Zambia's main bilateral donors, including the US, the UK and Denmark, are
monitoring developments week by week, with some ready to pull out if the
situation worsens. As for the debt relief money - carefully audited and
ring-fenced for social spending - one authoritative estimate has it that only
Dollars 1.6m of the Dollars 100m for this year has been spent.

It is almost impossible to wring any comment from the government on the matter.
Last week the finance ministry blocked all my requests for meetings with a
clearly practised display of bureaucratic buck-passing and spurious appeals to
protocol.

It isn't hard, however, to find depressing examples of warped priorities. Last
week's Organisation of African Unity summit was held in Lusaka. The Zambians
budgeted 0.5 per cent of annual national income for the meeting; it was used to
resurface roads and buy a new Mercedes for delegates - a far cry from the needs
of Aids patients.

The "millennium village", a field full of jerry-built whitewashed houses with
green mirrored glass, supposed to have been finished for the summit, lay
half-completed though local rumours have it that Libya's Colonel Gadaffi has
stepped in to buy them up.

Nearby, the concrete piles for another presidential vanity project, an
"Institute of Democratic and Industrial Relations Studies", rise out of the
baked earth.

Even money that is spent has difficulty reaching the poor. A third of government
spending is earmarked for health and education, but Laurence Clarke says the
preliminary results of a joint government/World Bank study suggests that much
does not get to the front line.

No one looks good in the mess that is Zambia. Aid flows to the country are
inadequate; debt relief is minimal; western government donors appear fragmented;
drugs prices will have to come down much further to help Aids sufferers.

In a country run better than Zambia is, the G8's failings would be shown in more
stark terms. But for Zambia, they are dwarfed by the failures of Chiluba's
jittery, unstable government.

LOAD-DATE: July 23, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 19, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

Blair sticks to support of Bush defence plan US PRESIDENTIAL VISIT DOWNING
STREET IGNORES MPs' PROTESTS BUT HAS RESERVATIONS ON KYOTO ACCORD:

BYLINE: By BEN HUNT and ANDREW PARKER

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 443 words

DATELINE: LONDON and BELFAST

Tony Blair ignored oppos-ition from Labour MPs yesterday and reiterated his
sympathetic view of controversial US plans for missile defences against rogue
nuclear states.

Before George W. Bush flew into Britain last night for his first visit as US
president, the prime minister's spokesman said defensive and offensive systems
were needed to deal with weapons of mass destruction.

"The top priority for the prime minister and the president is for the UK and the
US to carry on their very close co-operation to ensure stability in the world,"
said the spokesman. "The only gainers if that relationship is weakened are the
bad guys."

Mr Bush fuelled concern among Labour MPs yesterday by saying he wanted to get
rid of the anti-ballistic missile treaty that has been the cornerstone of arms
control between the US and Russia over the past 30 years.

Mr Blair's spokesman said the prime minister shared the White House's view that
with the end of the cold war, there was now a new threat based on the spread of
missile technology and weapons of mass destruction. He said Mr Blair had paid
close attention to analysis by the intelligence agencies of the threat. It is
believed to focus on states such as North Korea, Iraq and Libya.

The US may need to upgrade radar stations in the north of England as part of its
missile defences. The spokesman said Britain could not set out a precise
position on the US plans until Mr Bush provided detailed proposals.

However, Mr Blair's spokesman admitted there was disagreement over Mr Bush's
decision to repudiate the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to tackle global warming.
"I am sure the prime minister will underline once again to President Bush that
for the European Union this is a serious issue of substance," he said. "We
remain committed to the Kyoto Protocol."

Mr Bush will spend this morning at the Cabinet Office war rooms, where he can
find out more about his hero Winston Churchill, and at the British Museum.

He will have lunch with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, and then go for talks at
Chequers, the prime minister's country residence.

Mr Bush and Mr Blair will review progress on US and EU efforts to halt the slide
to civil war in Macedonia.

Mr Blair will also update Mr Bush on the stalled Northern Ireland peace process.
Mr Bush yesterday called on the IRA to start handing over its weapons as a
central part of the Good Friday peace accord.

Whitehall officials are encouraged by Mr Bush's interest in the peace process.
Ulster politicians also welcomed his intervention. An Ulster Unionist official
said: "We would never have received such unequivocal support (for
decommissioning) from Bill Clinton."

LOAD-DATE: July 18, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 14, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Are the oil giants out of their depth? In the shallow waters of the northern
Caspian Sea, they face one of their biggest challenges - how to extract what
could be a vast reserve without causing an environmental or political storm.
David Buchan reports

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 2072 words

From afar, across the light blue waters of the north Caspian, it looks like an
island church in the Venetian lagoon. Closer up, the duomo turns out to be a
drilling tower, the basilica an enormous platform, and together they are a
remarkable tribute to what people will do to get oil.

The Sunkar rig (Kazakh for eagle) started life as a Nigerian swamp barge. It was
towed through the Mediterranean, across the Black Sea, up the Don, down the
Volga, to Astrakhan where Russian welders added side pontoons that tripled its
width to the dimension of a football field.

It now sits 50km out in the waters of Kazakhstan in all of 4 metres of water,
resting on a slightly built-up "berm", and at several times its original weight
of 7,400 tonnes with all the drilling equipment needed to map out the dimensions
of the Kashagan oilfield.

No one in their right mind would go to such lengths to mount such an invasion of
the shallows of the north Caspian, if Kashagan were not considered the largest
potential oil reserve found in the world in the past two decades.

In one sense, Kashagan is a godsend. Discoveries in established oil provinces
have declined in size. So, to sustain the world's ever-growing appetite for oil,
the industry is pushing the limits of technology and geography to prospect in
places such as the deep water off west Africa.

Politicians, too, are taking more chances. President George W. Bush is risking
the wrath of the US environmental lobby by proposing to open up part of Alaska's
hitherto sacrosanct wildlife refuge to drilling. At best, it probably holds only
half Kashagan's reserves.

Kashagan could be vast. Sunkar has drilled two exploratory wells 40km apart, and
found oil in each. The supposition that the two wells form part of the same
oil-bearing structure has led some analysts to guess it could hold 4Obn barrels,
though only part of that will be recoverable.

To pursue this potential prize, nine oil companies, including the majors
ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalFinaElf and Agip, the exploration wing of Italy's Eni
took the unusual step of putting all their concessions together and forming the
Offshore Kazakhstan International Oil Consortium (Okioc) to exploit Kashagan.

But the challenges are enormous. "I think it would almost have been a relief for
many of us if we hadn't found oil," says a senior executive of one of the
companies involved.

While the environment is a challenge to Okioc, whose rigs also have to contend
with wind-driven ice piles in winter, Okioc also poses a serious challenge to
the environment. Drilling in the north Caspian poses greater potential
ecological risks than, for instance, anything Bush has proposed for Alaska.

The Caspian has no scouring tide to clean it, and its northern part has no depth
to disperse oil spills. This giant paddling pool (the north Caspian's average
depth is 3.3 metres) is home to the unique Caspian seal, and to 80 per cent of
the world's caviar - the deltas of the Volga and Ural rivers which flow into the
north Caspian are the sturgeon's main breeding grounds.

"No financial payment can compensate for damage done to the environment," says
Serikbek Daukeyev, the akim (governor) of the Atyrau region, into which Kashagan
falls.

But this former environment minister in the central Kazakh government makes it
clear he will pursue any claims against Okioc, stressing that "the risks should
be insured".

They are. Quite apart from the liability precautions of its individual member
companies, Okioc itself has taken out a Dollars 500m insurance policy - a record
for a single field. So far it has only paid a tiny fine (Dollars 300) for a tiny
spill (200 litres) from Sunkar.

But the risks will grow. When BP recently decided to sell its 9 per cent share
in Kashagan, it said the reason was that it would never have had the same
influence as other majors with 14 per cent each. But environmental worries and
liabilities are also said to have been behind BP's retreat.

If the Kazakhs are watching Okioc like a hawk, Agip, Kashagan's new operator, is
under equal scrutiny from its partners. The Italian company was voted into the
operatorship in a classic round of oil industry machinations that ended in a
Heathrow airport hotel in February.

The Italians' victory came after their bigger brethren cancelled each other out.
Shell, by its own admission, made itself unpopular for the early delays and cost
overruns in the construction of Sunkar for which it was responsible.

ExxonMobil's partners thought having a US company in charge might foreclose the
possibility of eventually shipping Kashagan oil through Iran.

TotalFinaElf tried to buy its way into the operator's chair by offering Dollars
600m for the Kashagan shares of BP and Statoil of Norway. But it was blocked by
ExxonMobil and Shell which TotalFinaElf executives surmise - wanted to prevent
the newly merged TotalFina and Elf from cementing their progress.

"So the Italians won because they were the least objectionable," says one
executive of another company.

But Kashagan is years from full development, and Agip may find its partners -
Exxon is mentioned - only too willing to take over if the Italians slip up.

It is not the Italian way to play hard ball. So far, the main sign of the new
regime is the appearance of espresso coffee machines in Atyrau, the operational
headquarters of Okioc, and the careworn admission by Andrea Chiura, Okioc's
on-the-spot manager, that he will have to spend even more time in Atyrau and
less in his native Bologna.

Agip is keeping the management headquarters in The Hague (placed there when
Shell played the main part in Kashagan's start-up). "We will share core
positions with our partners," Chiura says. We have no intention of filling 100
per cent ourselves."

But the 51-year-old Italian acknowledges that Kashagan is the biggest challenge
of a career that has taken him to Libya, Norway, Tunisia and Azerbaijan.

And Agip is fielding others from its A-team. Last month, for A instance, it
brought in a new seismic team led by Davide Calcagni, who after recent service
in Aberdeen has been tracking Kashagan from Milan.

Agip, he says, has kept a full capacity in the acquisition of seismic data which
some other companies farm out, as well as seismic data interpretation, which all
the companies still do. Other new arrivals are being brought in from China, and
from Nigeria via Milan.

At the Okioc hotel, they drink water, and after dinner head back to the
computers to continue reading the seismic runes - in contrast to their northern
European counterparts' penchant to sink a few after-work beers. They almost seem
to want, in the face of a certain scepticism from their partners, to remind
everyone that just as the Romans once supervised works across the known world,
so they can do so again in the unknowns of Kashagan.

The biggest unknown is the water level. "The real curse of the Caspian is its
variability," says Gerry, an Okioc engineer.

The Caspian's general level has, for reasons essentially unknown but perhaps
relating to tectonic plate movement, fluctuated. It gradually declined from 1940
to the late 1970s, then rose quite sharply until the mid-1990s, only to subside
since.

But the wind, sweeping down from Russia or across the Kazakh steppes, cars cause
far more rapid fluctuations. "Ifs like blowing across a saucer of water,"
explains an Okioc employee.

One day last month, for instance, the level around the Sunkar dropped by 1
metre, or 25 per cent, forcing tugs and supply boats to manoeuvre to avoid
running aground.

With a shallow gradient of 10,000:1 a change of 1 metre for every 10km these
surges and retreats can temporarily move parts of the coastline up to 30km
inland or up to 10km offshore.

The surges can turn nasty in winter. They produce ice floes, piled up on each
other by the wind against any solid form such as a rig. To guard against this,
the Astrakhan welders put high steel sides on the Sunkar. Okioc is also
experimenting with pylons and rock piles to provide ice-breaks away from the
rig.

The consortium has turned to Arctic solutions for escape vehicles. It has bought
Canadian-made Arktos rescue vehicles. Each resembles two first world war tanks
yoked together so that one helps the other to clamber in and off ice and water.
So far they have not been used, and may never be.

But in regular use - in this technophile's paradise - are two Finnish-built,
Dutch-operated, ice-breaking supply ships. Faced with thick ice, ice-breakers
usually rely on driving themselves up on to the ice, and using their weight to
break it. In the shallow north Caspian this would simply drive the boat into the
seabed.

So the Wagenborg boats - named, predictably, Arcticaborg and Antarcticaborg -
have propellers that can swivel through 360 degrees. If the boats hit trouble,
they turn round and go in backwards, chewing up the ice with their propellers.

As if Kashagan did not have hazards enough, its oil - in common with onshore
Kazakh oil - comes with a high degree of hydrogen sulphide, H2S, a poisonous
gas. To guard against a release of this gas, the 80 workers on the Sunkar all
have emergency oxygen masks and canisters to hand.

Eventually, says Ron Steinbring, the Sunkar's beefy Dutch drilling supervisor,
the H2S gas can be injected into spare wells - but only when there are some
depleted wells.

In the same way, it may be possible to dump the cores, or "cuttings", of earth
from new wells into old wells. But for now they are laboriously transported back
to the Kashagan logistics base at Bautino and buried in clay-lined pits.

While these problems may ease as the scale of work increases, a different set of
issues arises, and troubles Galina Chernova. She is a former employee of the
state ecology department in Atyrau, and now runs that rare thing in Kazakhstan,
a non-governmental organisation called the Centre for Ecological Legal
Initiatives.

She wants to stop Kashagan, or at least reduce its scale and impact. "The waters
are just too shallow for an oil-field," she says. "The regional and state
inspectors (of Kazakhstan) are not equipped to control emissions even from
Okioc's present operations." She understands that Kashagan could end up with as
many as 82 wells.

Okioc does not dispute the possibility that if it proves successful, Kashagan
might eventually have 82 wells. "It could be more," says Graham Johnson, Okioc's
environmental supervisor, who points out that a typical North Sea platform would
drill 30-40 wells.

But he rejects any notion that Okioc is lightly regulated: "We are already
controlled to the nth degree by the Kazakh authorities. For instance, treated
sewage dumped into the by sea from the Sunkar is measured against 16 parameters
three times a week, while in the North Sea it would be measured against three
parameters once every three months. If the country isn't careful, it will weigh
people down with minutiae and miss the bigger picture."

The bigger picture is coming into view. Okioc has already decided its second rig
will be on land, on an artificial island being built with 200,000 tonnes of rock
brought from Bautino.

How many such islands will there be? Neither Andrea Chiura nor Graham Johnson
will, or can, say. But the latter points out that "there are plenty of islands
in the Caspian which come and go naturally because of the wind movements".

There won't be 82 islands, however, even if there are 82 wells, because each
rig, whether on a barge or on land, can drill several wells - one vertical and
several off at an angle. Johnson, however, warns against putting too much faith
in western horizontal drilling techniques: the record for a horizontal well is
about 5km, and Kashagan's distance from the shore is 10 times that.

What Kashagan shows dramatically is how difficult the balance of risk and reward
is becoming as the world runs out of easy oil deposits.

Ordinary Kazakhs are understandably nervous. In the late 1980s, an oil fire at
Tengiz burned for a year, and they know that a comparable accident at Kashagan
could be disastrous.

Yet it is the Daukayevs, not the Chernovas, that run the country. "Kashagan will
determine the economy of our country," says the Atyrau governor.

The oil companies also have a balance to strike. They will be pushing for profit
and recompense on their big Kashagan outlays, but equally know what damage a big
Caspian oil spill could do to their worldwide image.

http://timeoff.ft.com/weekend

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 10, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 2

Abbot wins Iran oil contract

BYLINE: By MATTHEW JONES

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK ; Pg. 28

LENGTH: 350 words

Abbot Group, the UK's largest oil-drilling contractor, said yesterday it had won
its second contract in Iran this year after being appointed as the onshore
driller for the Dorood field development on Kharg Island.

The Dollars 50m (Pounds 36m) contract, with TotalFinaElf of France, comes as
international oil companies are testing US resolve over its Iran-Libya Sanctions
Act.

The legislation, which is expected to be extended by Congress next month,
threatens penalties against non-US companies investing in the energy sectors of
those countries. However, Japan's National Oil Corporation on Sunday signed an
agreement to fund seismic analysis of the large Azadegan oilfield and last week
Eni of Italy signed a Dollars 920m development contract for the Darkhoein field.

Abbot's contract will be carried out by its KCA Drilling subsidiary and involves
drilling 28 production wells over three years. It follows a contract in March to
manage two offshore drilling rigs in Iranian waters for the National Iranian Oil
Company.

Alasdair Locke, executive chairman of Abbot, said the group had ambitions to
build a position in the Iranian oilfield services market in the next few years.

"We are actively pursuing other onshore and offshore opportunities and we are
hopeful that Dorood will soon be followed by other contract awards," he said.

Michael Salter, chief operating officer, added that the company did not expect
to be damaged by US sanctions because its only business activities in the US
were a marketing office in Houston.

European and Japanese oil groups are increasingly confident that the US will not
risk a trade war by levying ILSA penalties, which have never been imposed since
they were brought into law in 1996.

Other oil companies negotiating deals in Iran include BP, Royal Dutch/Shell and
Enterprise Oil.

Eni is the leading foreign oil company in Iran with four big projects. Its deal
is expected to start a trend for other western companies by setting
unprecedented performance-related payments rather than agreeing a normal
production-sharing contract, which is illegal in Iran.

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 9, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Japan deal over work on Iran oilfield

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 385 words

Japan's National Oil Corporation (JNOC) signed a Dollars 10m (Pounds 7m)
agreement yesterday to fund seismic analysis of Iran's giant Azadegan oilfield,
which is under negotiation to be developed by a consortium of Japanese companies
and the Royal Dutch/ Shell Group.

The agreement on 3-D seismic work, to be carried out by Western G-Co, an
Anglo-Norwegian company, marks the first step in Japan's intended development of
Azadegan, with estimated oil in place of some 25bn barrels and recoverable
reserves of 6bn.

Mahmood Mohaddes, board member of Iran's National Oil Company (NIOC), said
negotiations on developing Azadegan, which lies along Iran's border with Iraq,
could be completed by the end of this year.

Japan turned to Iran as a long-term source of oil supplies after the Tokyo-based
Arabian Oil lost its drilling rights in the Saudi Arabian section of the Kafji
oil field early last year.

The Japanese consortium, comprising JNOC, Japan Petroleum Exploitation,
Indonesia Petroleum and Tomen, negotiated a one-third stake with Shell in what
would be Japan's biggest oil development project. Bijan Zanganeh, Iran's oil
minister, said NIOC was still studying Shell's participation. NIOC sources
indicated it would be approved.

Development of Azadegan will deal another blow to US efforts to prevent
investment in Iran's energy sector, following Tehran's signing of a separate
Dollars 920m oil development deal with Italy's Eni last week.

The US Congress is expected next month to extend the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act
which threatens sanctions against non-US companies investing in the energy
sectors of those countries. But Takeo Hiranuma, Japan's trade, economy and
industry minister, told reporters in Tehran he was not concerned about US
pressure.

Japan won first negotiating rights for Azadegan after agreeing on Dollars 3bn of
pre-payments for Iranian oil during a visit to Tokyo last year by President
Mohammad Khatami. Mr Zanganeh declined to comment on reports valuing the
proposed Azadegan deal at Dollars 8bn, while Mr Hiranuma said it was too early
to say.

Yesterday's contract also appears to end involvement in Azadegan by Conoco, the
US oil major, which, according to Iranian officials, had carried out 2-D seismic
evaluation of the field. For more reports see www.ft.com/globaleconomy

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 2, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Eni oil deal linked to performance payments IRAN ENERGY ITALY BREAKS NEW GROUND:

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 400 words

DATELINE: TEHRAN

Eni, the Italian energy group, has broken new ground in Iran by signing a
Dollars 920m (Pounds 654m) oil contract linked to unprecedented
performance-related payments likely to set the trend in Tehran's negotiations
with other western oil giants.

With development of the onshore Darkhoein field, its fourth major oil and gas
project in Iran, Eni will be the largest foreign contractor to Tehran. It may
also become the focus of concern for the US which has sought, with little
success, to curb investment in Iran's energy sector.

The US Congress is debating whether to extend, for five or two years, the Iran-
Libya Sanctions Act (Ilsa) that permits the president to impose penalties on
non-US companies investing in the energy sector of those two countries.

But European oil companies appear confident that President George W. Bush will
not risk a trade war by levying Ilsa sanctions, which have never been imposed
since the act became law in 1996.

US oil companies are barred from working in Iran under separate executive orders
issued in 1995.

Analysts in Tehran said Iran's clerical regime wanted to demonstrate to the US
the failure of its oil sanctions. But more interesting to oil majors such as
Shell, BP, TotalFinaElf and a Japanese consortium, all negotiating their own
future deals, was the nature of the Eni contract that provides for incentives
and penalties linked to performance.

Iran's constitution forbids foreign companies from holding production-sharing
agreements or operating oil fields. But under the "buy-back" system introduced
in 1995, overseas groups develop fields to be handed over to the Iranian
operator which then pays a pre-agreed amount with the oil produced.

After what Vittorio Mincato, Eni CEO, described as "long and complex"
negotiations, the two sides agreed on a modified formula whereby the National
Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) would have "sole control" over operating the field,
but Eni would be part of a joint "production marketing committee".

In the second stage of developing Darkhoein, with output set to reach 160,000
barrels per day (bpd), payment to Eni would be linked to 16 production tests
over four years, a joint statement said.

NIOC has the right after the first two-year stage of development, when output is
targeted at 50,000 bpd, to decide whether to proceed with the next stage.
Penalties are also set if Eni fails to meet Iranian content.

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 2, 2001 Monday
USA Edition 2

US faces test on Iran sanctions ITALIAN GROUP'S OIL DEAL MAY CHALLENGE WHITE
HOUSE EFFORTS TO CURB ENERGY INVESTMENT IN TEHRAN:

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 528 words

DATELINE: TEHRAN

Eni, the Italian energy group, has broken new ground in Iran by signing a
Dollars 920m oil contract linked to unprecedented performance-related payments
that are likely to set the trend in Tehran's negotiations with other Western oil
giants.

Eni may also become the focus of concern for the US which has sought, with
little success, to curb investment in Iran's energy sector. With development of
the onshore Darkhoein field, its fourth big oil and gas project in Iran, Eni
will be the largest foreign contractor to Tehran.

Congress is debating whether to extend, for five or two years, the Iran-Libya
Sanctions Act (ILSA) that permits the president to impose penalties on non-US
companies investing in the energy sector of those countries.

But European oil companies appear confident that President George W. Bush will
not risk a trade war by levying ILSA sanctions, which have never been imposed
since the act became law in 1996. US oil companies are barred from working in
Iran under separate executive orders issued in 1995.

Analysts in Tehran said Iran's clerical regime wanted to demonstrate to the US
the failure of its oil sanctions. But more interesting to leading oil groups
such as Shell, BP, TotalFinaElf and a Japanese consortium, all negotiating their
own future deals, was the nature of the Eni contract that provides for
incentives and penalties linked to performance.

Iran's constitution forbids foreign companies from holding production-sharing
agreements or operating oil fields. But under the "buy-back" system introduced
in 1995, overseas groups develop fields to be handed over to the Iranian
operator, which then pays a pre-agreed amount with the oil produced.

After what Vittorio Mincato, Eni CEO, described as "long and complex"
negotiations, the two sides agreed on a modified formula, whereby the National
Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) would have "sole control" over operating the field,
but Eni would be part of a joint "production marketing committee".

In the second stage of developing Darkhoein, with output set to reach 160,000
barrels per day (bpd), payment to Eni would be linked to 16 production tests
over four years, a joint statement said.

NIOC has the right after the first two-year stage of development, when output is
targeted at 50,000 bpd, to decide whether to proceed with the next stage.
Penalties are also set if Eni fails to meet Iranian content, which analysts
believe has been set at 51 per cent for onshore fields. Eni's fee for the whole
project has been set at Dollars 220m, with capital expenditure no more than
Dollars 548m and bank charges of Dollars 152m.

Western oil representatives, while not seeing the details of the contract, gave
a guarded welcome to the new formula, which will encourage them to risk using
the latest technology and give them some kind of operating role.

They are worried more about the impact on business of Iran's factional politics
than the threat of US sanctions. Hardline opponents of President Mohammad
Khatami's pro-reform administration allege the oil industry is riddled with
corruption and are suspicious of foreign exploitation. Lukoil disappoints US,
Page 27 www.ft.com/energy

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 27, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 3

Eni embroiled in Tehran spat over oilfield

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 603 words

DATELINE: TEHRAN

Italy's bid through Eni, the energy company, to become the biggest player in
Iran's oil and gas sector has become embroiled in Tehran's factional politics,
with parliament and the media fuelling a controversy over negotiations to
develop the Darkhoein oilfield.

Industry officials said Iran's inability to maintain current export levels
without substantial foreign involvement meant that the long-delayed deal,
reported to be worth up to Dollars 1bn (Pounds 700m), would still be signed with
Eni, perhaps next month.

But a growing political row over oil contracts with foreign companies in general
could persuade both sides to wait until President Mohammad Khatami reshuffles
his cabinet in August, when Bijan Zanganeh, the oil minister, is expected to be
replaced.

Politics and oil have been inseparable in Iran's modern history. Half a century
ago, Iran nationalised the oil industry, but decades of exploitation by the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company have left a deep suspicion of foreigners. Darkhoein
has the added sensitivity of being the first onshore oilfield to be awarded to a
foreign company since Iran introduced its "buy-back" system in 1995. Foreign
contractors are paid to develop the fields in the oil that is produced, at a
pre-agreed rate.

Undeterred by the threat of US sanctions, Eni, which is 30 per cent owned by the
Italian state, is already involved in three offshore oil and gas projects in
Iran worth about Dollars 2.5bn.

The US Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, expected to be renewed by Congress shortly,
threatens punitive measures against foreign companies investing in the energy
sectors of those countries. But the act has never been enforced and European oil
majors do not regard it as a serious deterrent.

Eni was close to signing an agreement on Darkhoein with the National Iranian Oil
Company (NIOC) early last year. But after the Sirri field developed by France's
Total failed to meet expected output levels, Iran demanded that foreign
contractors should guarantee future production levels after handing over fields
to NIOC to operate.

Since Iran's constitution forbids foreign companies from operating fields or
holding an equity stake, Eni and others argued they could not give such
guarantees. For more than a year, negotiations were bogged down over the concept
of "modified buy-backs", where penalties and incentives would be linked to
performance but with a limited foreign operating role.

Other oil majors, namely BP, Shell and Total, see the Darkhoein contract as an
important benchmark for other fields out to tender.

But industry officials said the eventual Darkhoein deal would not be
substantially different from past buy-backs. Output would be targeted, but not
guaranteed, to reach a plateau of 160,000 barrels per day. This represents a
climbdown by the oil ministry that is likely to be seized upon by hardline
opponents of Mr Khatami's pro-reform administration.

Conservatives are furious with the reformist majority in parliament for
launching an investigation into the finances of Irib, the state broadcast
network controlled by hardliners. Their response has been to demand publication
of buy-back contracts while alleging foul play in signing deals with foreign and
domestic partners.

"Oilfields have been transformed into political and factional battlefields,"
Isna, a pro-reform news agency, reported.

Reformist MPs are resisting demands for new buy-backs to be individually
approved by parliament and past deals investigated. But a call by the supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to tackle corruption means that the oil sector
is likely to come under close scrutiny.

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 27, 2001 Wednesday
USA Edition 2

Japanese minister to visit Iran for oil talks

BYLINE: By BAYAN RAHMAN

SECTION: AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST & INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 384 words

DATELINE: TOKYO

Takeo Hiranuma, Japan's trade minister, will visit Iran next month for
negotiations on a Japanese oil consortium's bid to explore Iran's Azadegan
oilfield.

The visit will be the first by a Japanese trade minister since 1979 and
emphasises the importance that Tokyo places on the deal, worth about Dollars
8bn. It could be Japan's largest oilfield development project if assumptions
about Azadegan prove right.

Mr Hiranuma's visit to Iran will come at the end of a tour starting on Tuesday
of Japan's other main oil partners - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab
Emirates. Japan is negotiating the renewal of a drilling contract with Kuwait
and Japan's Abu Dhabi Oil is seeking to increase production in the UAE.

Japan is dependent on oil imports, 85 per cent of which were from the Middle
East last year. The loss of a concession last year in Saudi Arabia's part of the
Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was a blow to Japan. It was also an
incentive for Tokyo to expand oil supplies from other countries and to improve
its bargaining position.

In November, Iran granted Japan first negotiating rights to develop part of the
Azadegan oilfield, but the Japanese consortium, comprising Indonesian Petroleum,
Japan National Oil, Japan Petroleum Exploration and Tomen trading company,
sought a European partner among Royal Dutch/ Shell, TotalFinaElf and BP.

It chose the Anglo-Dutch oil group because of the company's technological
know-how and involvement in other Iranian oil projects, Japanese government
officials said.

Investment in the Azadegan development was expected to be about Dollars 8bn but
the Japanese consortium and Royal Dutch/Shell were still negotiating who would
bear the larger share of the cost, the officials said.

Mr Hiranuma is expected to pledge the government's financial support for the
project during his meetings in Tehran. Japan has already offered Iran a Dollars
3bn credit line over three years as a sweetener.

The Japanese are gambling on the US not implementing the Iran-Libya Sanctions
Act, which looks set to be extended for five years from August. The act bars US
oil companies from doing business with Iran and allows the president to impose
sanctions on non-US companies investing in Iran's energy sector. For more
reports see www.ft.com/globaleconomy

LOAD-DATE: June 26, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 22, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

Oil deal will test US sanctions on Iran

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN and FRED KAPNER

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 489 words

DATELINE: MILAN and WASHINGTON

ENI, the Italian energy company, is expected this weekend to sign an agreement
to develop an oilfield in Iran, in a test of the Bush administration's
willingness to enforce US sanctions on foreign energy groups doing business
there.

The Clinton administration waived the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) in
the one previous test case involving European companies, and chose not to pursue
several other potential violations. The industry believes President George W.
Bush also will not want to cause friction by punishing European companies.

A US congressional committee, however, on Wednesday voted to renew the law,
which expires in August, for another five years. The White House had proposed
extending it for only two years, but US conservative lawmakers want a tough line
against both Iran and Libya. The conservatives fear Iran will use oil revenues
to fund international terrorism, and also want to punish Iran for its hostility
to Israel.

A State Department official said yesterday the US had raised concerns over the
proposed investments with the companies and governments involved. He said the
proposal would be looked at with regard to ILSA.

Despite the law, ENI, Royal Dutch/Shell, TotalFinaElf and BP in recent years
have agreed large projects in Iran without fall-out from the US. Those oil
companies, and a Japanese consortium, were now close to completing several more
deals, but held back from signing them in recent months until this month's
elections in Iran were held, industry executives said.

The re-election of Mohammad Khatami, Iran's reformist president, paves the way
for ENI to sign an agreement it has been working on for more than a year,
although a delay in the signing could occur as Mr Khatami has not yet named his
new cabinet.

ENI declined to comment on reports that Vittorio Mincato, ENI's chief executive,
would be in Iran on Sunday to sign a Dollars 1bn (Pounds 710m) deal to develop
the Darkhovin oilfield in western Iran.

In April BP signed an agreement with Iran to conduct a year-long study to
develop a large liquefied natural gas project. BP, ENI and other non-US oil
companies last autumn also bid to develop three oilfields in Iran's Bangestan
region.

A year ago ENI signed the biggest deal ever with Iran when it agreed to a
Dollars 3.8bn project to develop the South Pars natural gas field in the Gulf.

ENI is also leading a consortium to develop a potentially huge oilfield in
Kashagan, Kazakhstan, whose oil could eventually flow through Iran if a pipeline
is built there against US wishes. TotalFinaElf last month agreed with Iran to
study the feasibility of such a pipeline.

Analysts say such a pipeline would lead to cheaper transport costs for the
Kashagan oil than a planned pipeline to Turkey, which the US is backing. ENI
executives have said several pipelines could branch out of Kashagan, including
one through Russia. Additional reporting by Edward Alden in Washington

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 21, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

BP chief puts his weight behind Baku pipeline plan

BYLINE: By LEYLA BOULTON and DAVID STERN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 443 words

DATELINE: ANKARA and ISTANBUL

Sir John Browne, chief executive of BP, yesterday threw his weight behind a
Caspian oil pipeline, declared his company hoped to develop "sizeable" business
in Iran, and called for US action to help fight global warming.

In an interview, Sir John said he wanted "to remove as much doubt as possible,
if not all of it," surrounding his company's commitment to a planned pipeline
from Bakuthe Azeri capital, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan via Tbilisi in
Georgia.

He confirmed that BP, the leader of an international consortium to develop Azeri
oil reserves, was ready to start the detailed engineering study for the Dollars
3bn (Pounds 2.1bn) oil pipeline, with the aim of completing its construction by
the end of 2004.

Asked why BP, after early caution, was now convinced that the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan
project was commercially viable, Sir John said: "We're now much more certain
about the reserves," which in Azerbaijan's Azeri, Chriag and Ganashli fields
alone totalled 4.6bn barrels of oil.

In an encouraging sign that additional Kazakh volumes could be committed to the
pipeline, Vittorio Mincato, chief executive of Eni, the Italian group which is
exploring presumed large Kazakh reserves, announced yesterday in Istanbul that
his company was also keen to join the Dollars 150m study.

Sir John said BP ranked its planned Dollars 10bn investment in the south Caspian
over the next five years on a par with its "commitment to Saudi Arabia".

He played down suggestions that promoting a pipeline backed for strategic
reasons by the US - to develop former Soviet republics' independence from Russia
and discourage their use of Iranian export routes - could also help soften
potential US resistance to BP's scramble for business in Iran.

"I'm never a believer in total linkage but rather in case-by-case (consideration
of issues)," he said. "The fact is we're not an American company," he added.
More than 40 per cent of BP's assets are in the US.

Although BP had "started a bit later" than other companies to explore Iranian
opportunities - partly in order to "not unnecessarily upset our US interests" -
Sir John said BP hoped to "get some sizeable" business in Iran, but gave no
details of the "variety of fronts" it was pursuing. Reuters adds from
Washington: A US House of Representatives panel yesterday endorsed a five-year
extension of sanctions against Iran and Libya, brushing aside a White
House-backed proposal to limit the renewal to two years.

On a 41-3 vote, the House International Relations Committee backed a renewal of
the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act in an effort to curb foreign investment in the oil
and natural gas sectors of both countries.

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 20, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Macapagal tries to tackle separatist rebels on two fronts: Philippine
president's war against forces in Basilan coincides with start of talks with
another faction. Roel Landingin reports:

BYLINE: By ROEL LANDINGIN

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC ; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 873 words

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has brandished both gun and olive branch at
the Muslim rebels of the Philippines.

Her representatives are due to begin talks today in Libya with the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF), the biggest of three Muslim rebel groups, while
Philippines armed forces are mounting an all-out war against the Abu Sayyaf
extremists who are holding more than 20 hostages in the southern island of
Basilan.

The third Muslim force, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), signed a
peace agreement with the government in 1996. Its chairman, Nur Misuari, presides
over the four Muslim-dominated provinces that voted in a plebiscite to compose a
government-sponsored autonomous region.

The MILF, led by Hashim Salamat, a Middle East-educated scholar of Islamic
theology and philosophy, used to be the smallest of Mindanao's multiple armed
bands. Mr Salamat broke with the National Liberation Front after Mr Misuari
agreed to drop his campaign for independence in favour of autonomy, on the
advice of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Mrs Macapagal hopes the talks in Libya will eventually bring an end to three
decades of separatist fighting, which have cost at least 100,000 lives and held
back progress in resource-rich Mindanao, home to a fourth of the nation's 76m
people but also registering the lowest per capita income levels.

Eduardo Ermita, a retired general and Mrs Macapagal's adviser on the peace
process, says the discussions will focus on establishing systems to monitor and
enforce the 1997 ceasefire agreement between the armed forces and the
15,000-strong MILF army.

Future discussions - to be held in Malaysia or Indonesia - will deal with more
substantive issues such as political and religious autonomy and economic
development for the Philippines' 4.5m Muslims, who make up a quarter of
Mindanao's population, he says.

Mr Ermita believes the talks are likely to succeed because of the participation
of third parties such as Libya, Malaysia and Indonesia, which are expected to be
moderating influences on the Muslim rebels.

"With the Libyan and Malaysian officials as observers, we feel that some
unreasonable positions can be corrected and maybe the environment for the talks
can be improved," he says.

Previous talks collapsed in March last year after the now deposed president
Joseph Estrada launched military offensives to retake more than 40 MILF camps in
various parts of Mindanao, which resulted in the displacement of 200,000 people
living in rebel-controlled communities. The military success in driving MILF
forces from their camps may prove one of the stumbling blocks.

Before the talks were abandoned last year the government was verifying the
MILF's claim to have 11 big and 33 minor military camps. Rebel leaders have said
they want to re-establish control over those bases, a demand the military
opposes.

"The appointment to senior positions of officers responsible for the all-out war
policy against the MILF last year may not augur well for the peace talks," says
Eliseo Mercado, a Roman Catholic priest who was part of the team monitoring the
1997 government-MILF ceasefire agreement.

The main challenge facing Mrs Macapagal is to come up with a package of
concessions to satisfy the MILF's demands for autonomy without violating the
country's territorial integrity.

The framework for the 1996 peace settlement with the National Liberation Front -
greater participation for MNLF leaders in the administration of nominally
autonomous provinces - may no longer suffice this time, according to Glenda
Gloria, co-author of a book on the Muslim rebellion published last year.

The MILF's maximum demand is the establishment of an independent Islamic state
in the Muslim heartland of Mindanao, but its leader, Mr Salamat, has said they
are willing to accept a temporary solution short of independence as long as this
allows them to practice an Islamic way of life.

Ms Gloria says a possible compromise that both the government and the MILF can
explore is the conversion of the former rebel camps into self-sustaining,
autonomous Islamic communities, where Sharia, or Islamic law, prevails.

"The MILF is willing to reconsider its demand for an independent Islamic state;
perhaps the government can reciprocate by allowing them to form autonomous
communities where they are allowed to live and govern themselves according to
Islamic principles," she says.

Soliman Santos, an expert on constitutional law at the University of the
Philippines, has written that it is possible to find a constitutional solution
to accommodate the MILF's demands for Islamic government in selected areas in
Mindanao without dismembering the nation-state. He says the Philippines can
perhaps learn from the establishment of the Hong Kong special administrative
region under Chinese rule in accordance with the principle of "one country, two
systems".

Finding a constitutional solution to the MILF's demands is not the only
challenge. Mrs Macapagal must also seek support for the peace accord among
military and political leaders, including the majority Christian population in
Mindanao who are always critical of efforts to expand Muslim autonomy.

"It's not going to be easy," says Ms Gloria.

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 20, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 2

Fears grow on US bill for market sanctions SUDAN ACT EFFORT TO DERAIL
LEGISLATION:

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN and KEN WARN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 502 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON and TORONTO

US business groups and the Bush administration will try to derail legislation
that would exclude some foreign companies from US stock markets if they run foul
of US foreign policy.

Concern has grown after Talisman Energy, the Canadian oil company, warned this
week it would sell its controversial stake in a Sudan oil project if the US
Congress pushed forward with threats to de-list the company from the New York
stock exchange.

Jim Buckee, Talisman's chief executive, said in Calgary on Monday that the Sudan
Peace Act, passed by the House of Representatives last week on a 422-2 vote,
could force the company to pull out of Sudan rather than risk losing access to
US capital markets.

Mr Buckee said the bill was "dangerous" and would "send a big chill through all
other foreign investors who potentially want to list in the US".

US companies are barred from Sudan, and there is growing support in Congress for
measures that would in effect block foreign companies as well. US legislators
hope that depriving the Khartoum government of oil revenues would end the civil
war in Sudan, which has claimed about 2m lives during two decades.

The Bush administration opposes two measures in the bill. The stronger language
would prohibit any company engaged in oil or gas development in Sudan from
raising capital in the US or trading its securities on US exchanges. These could
include not only Talisman but Petro-China, China's national oil company, and
Sweden's Lundin Oil. A second, milder provision would simply require that all
companies doing business in Sudan disclose that to the Securities and Exchange
Commission.

The bill must still be taken up by the Senate, which last year defeated attempts
to include capital markets sanctions in a bill on Chinese weapons proliferation.

David Strongin, director of international finance for the Securities Industry
Association, said the Sudan bill would be "bad for capital markets, bad for
investors and bad for business", and would encourage companies to seek listings
outside the US.

The Sudan effort, however, is the most concrete sign yet that a capital markets
sanction provision could be enacted into US law.

President George W. Bush has said he wants to help curb the war in Sudan, and
faces pressure from Christian groups with strong ties to Republican
conservatives. The Sudanese war has pitted a succession of Muslim governments in
the north against Christian secessionist rebels in the south, where US
evangelical groups are active.

"Given the truly extraordinary political profile of Sudan in Washington,
President Bush simply can't afford to veto any version of a Sudan Peace Act,"
said Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor who has spearheaded the campaign for
sanctions against oil companies in Sudan.

The issue could easily spread beyond Sudan, however. The SEC last month, under
congressional pressure, said it would now require companies to disclose
operations in any country under US sanctions, including North Korea, Cuba, Iran,
Iraq and Libya.

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 18, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Beyond Kyoto: Critics of the US should start looking for alternative ways of
tackling climate change, say Philip Gordon and J:

BYLINE: By PHILIP GORDON and JAMES LINDSAY

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 828 words

The best that can be said about US-European Union discussions last week on
global warming is that both sides had a chance to air their views. President
George W. Bush insisted that the Kyoto Protocol was fatally flawed and that more
studies were needed before deciding what to do. European leaders countered that
it was time to act and that Kyoto was crucial to avoiding a global catastrophe.

Diplomatic niceties, however, cannot paper over the chasm that separates these
two views. Indeed, the intensity of the split could well match that of the
dispute over the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, a quarrel that, during the late
1990s, infected virtually every aspect of transatlantic relations.

Disagreements over global warming can be prevented from following a similar
path, but only if both US and European leaders start putting long-term
environmental concerns above domestic politics. Last week's talks were not
promising in that respect.

Europeans, hoping that the US public will solve the problem by forcing Mr Bush
to embrace Kyoto, are likely to be disappointed. Few Americans list global
warming as a top concern or worry that it will threaten them in their lifetime.
And while two out of three Americans say the US should act to avert climate
change, less than half say they would pay 25 cents more for a gallon of gasoline
to help it do so.

Democrats, newly in control of the Senate, no doubt hope to change those
assessments. But Mr Bush has two strong talking points, especially now that he
grants - however grudgingly - that global warming is occurring.

One is that the four-year-old Kyoto accord it has yet to be ratified by a single
European country, most of which have made little progress in curbing their own
emissions. In fact, only Britain and Germany have succeeded in curbing
emissions, and the latter has done so only because Kyoto's counting rules allow
it to take credit for shutting down East Germany's highly inefficient
industries.

Bush can also credibly assert that Kyoto is unfair because it exempts big
emitters such as China and India. Americans will recoil from any treaty that
does not ask all countries to play a role in preventing climate change.

Europeans, therefore, are likely to face a US administration unwilling to budge
from its view that the Kyoto agreement is a non-starter.

Europe can thus proceed in one of two ways. The first is to continue on its
present course of criticising Mr Bush for failing to see Kyoto's merits and
calling for him to change course.

That strategy is politically convenient and emotionally satisfying, given
widespread European irritation at the US president's high-handed dismissal of
Kyoto. Yet it will do nothing to curb the growing emission of greenhouse gases.
It may even be counterproductive, fuelling suspicions - found not just in the US
- that Europe prefers posturing to the pursuit of actual emission cuts.

The other choice would be to pursue a policy commensurate with Europe's claim
that it is ready to play a leadership role in world affairs. Such a strategy
would consist of three elements. First, Europe should admit that Kyoto is dead.
The cause of preventing climate change is not served by pretending that the
treaty provides a workable framework for reducing carbon emissions. The targets
are too ambitious to be realistic and the demands unfairly distributed among
countries.

Second, Europe should take the initiative in proposing an alternative treaty
framework that still calls on the US to make deep cuts in emissions but that
addresses Mr Bush's legitimate complaints about Kyoto. That means offering a
sensible emissions trading programme, a market-based approach that can
substantially decrease the cost of reducing emissions.

It also means creating a mechanism for bringing developing countries into the
process. Proposing an alternative treaty that acknowledges US concerns would put
pressure on Mr Bush to put up or shut up on his pledge to work within the 1992
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Third, Europe should honour its own pledges to cut its greenhouse gas emissions
unilaterally and challenge Mr Bush to live up to his own repeated promises to
take the issue seriously. Tangible European progress on reducing emissions would
rebut his accusation that Europe is all talk and no action and expose his
unwillingness to support anything but further study of the issue as the cop-out
that it is. It would also give political ammunition to those in the US who
support more aggressive policies to combat global warming.

No doubt such a strategy would be difficult for many Europeans to swallow. It
requires putting aside their indignation over the Bush administration's
unwillingness to endorse Kyoto. But the real issue is not how to score political
points but to make progress on preventing climate change. Both European and US
leaderships need to show they know the difference.

The writers are senior fellows at the Brookings Institution

LOAD-DATE: June 17, 2001

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 15, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

Time for Europe to grow up: The continent can hardly complain about American
unilateralism if it fails to take responsibility for its own destiny

BYLINE: By PHILIP STEPHENS

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 1103 words

Every now and then US policymakers are heard to remark that Europe's moment has
passed. The future, good and bad, lies with Asia. America has tired of its role
as Europe's over-generous uncle. The children are ungrateful and fractious. Let
them grow up and take care of themselves. Washington has more pressing
interests.

At this point I am inclined to recall Zbigniew Brzezinski's characterisation of
the transatlantic relationship. Mr Brzezinski, who served as national security
adviser to President Jimmy Carter and now teaches, speaks with refreshing
bluntness about the global strategic balance.

Western Europe, he observes, is an "American protectorate". The allies remind
him of the vassals and tributaries of empires past. Britain, which to my mind
has treasured its "special relationship" much as a teenager clings to a
favourite, battered teddy bear, is to be flattered and ignored. "Its friendship
needs to be nourished but its policies do not call for sustained attention."
Ouch.

Mr Brzezinski, of course, does not speak for the present US administration, or
indeed for the last. Many in Washington would quarrel with his candid
celebration of US hegemony, his visceral suspicion of Russia and the caustic
brutality of his analysis. For all the caveats, though, he captures an important
truth.

Wherever else it may cast its gaze (and, of course, it cannot ignore China) the
concentration of America's interests - economic, political and military - is
still in Europe. Take a few figures. The European Union accounts for 45 per cent
of all US investment overseas. It is by far the biggest market outside the US
and is worth more than Dollars 250bn a year to American exporters. The EU has
provided 60 per cent of all foreign investment in the US. Even for the world's
sole superpower, those are pretty big numbers.

Geography defines the continent's pivotal security role. Russia, Iraq and Iran,
Libya, the Israeli/Palestinian cauldron, Afghanistan, the Caucasus: the myriad
threats to US economic and political security, real or imagined, lie on Europe's
periphery. Self-interest demands of any US administration that it safeguards its
postwar role - enshrined in the Nato alliance - as Europe's pre-eminent power.

Hegemony, of course, comes with a price tag. American taxpayers must be asked to
dig into their pockets in defence of freedom in countries of which they have
heard nothing and care less. Sending GI's to Kosovo does not play well in
Kansas. From time to time, US presidents must pay lip service to the fiction of
an equal partnership with its European allies. But the occasional show of
humility and a few billion dollars extra on the Pentagon's colossal budget
represent investments that repay themselves many times over.

George W. Bush, it seems, has come to that conclusion. For a European, watching
him backslap his way across the continent this week has stirred much unease -
albeit tinged with a certain admiration. Amid the mainly polite bleating in
Brussels and Gothenburg about the Bush administration's policies, the
president's trip should also have prompted real soul-searching among his
European hosts.

Those leaders who have met Mr Bush say he is genuinely charming and, no, not at
all stupid. His frequent wrestling matches with the English (and Spanish)
languages do not get in the way of his meaning. The message is as clear as it is
uncomfortable.

The US will consult its European allies on issues as diverse as Missile Defence
(as it is now called), relations with Russia, the Middle East and North Korea
and climate change. It will take care to avoid the mistake it made over the
Kyoto protocol when it spoke first and only later sought to explain. It wants to
dispel the idea that it is instinctively unilateralist. But, and here make no
mistake, Mr Bush has views. And he intends to stick with them.

My own judgment is that there can never be an agreement between the US and its
European allies on Missile Defence. The best (if that is the right word) that
can be hoped for is an accommodation - and that is contingent on Mr Bush
offering a sufficiently generous financial package to President Vladimir Putin
to secure Russian acquiescence. For now, the modus vivendi seems to rest on
mutual restraint. European leaders (save perhaps Jacques Chirac) tone down
criticism of MD while Mr Bush quietens those in Washington (led by Donald
Rumsfeld at the Pentagon) who are alarmed by the EU's plans to build its own
defence identity.

But MD exposes a fundamental divergence between American and European concepts
of security. The US wants to respond to the perceived threat to its homeland
from rogue states by building a stockade. It has the money and, it thinks, the
technology. It wants invulnerability alongside invincibility.

Europe can never aspire to such absolute security. Even if it had the resources,
it would be stymied by geography. Its long-term security rests on the projection
beyond its borders of stability and prosperity. Military and technological
capabilities can supplement but never substitute for a complex mix of politics,
trade and aid and diplomacy. This demands, in turn, a multilateral framework.

That is why Europe rightly fears US abrogation of the 1972 anti-ballistic
missile treaty. Most other disarmament and non-profileration agreements rest on
the foundation of the ABM treaty. Europe's nightmare sees the whole multilateral
edifice come crashing down.

Here, though, the Union must take a long hard look in the mirror. Even as they
gripe about Washington, European leaders refuse to take real responsibility. We
saw again this week how the US is defining Europe's boundaries by forcing the
pace on the admission of new members to Nato. Why? Because the EU's approach to
its enlargement is as slow as it is sullen. Europe thus surrenders the chance to
determine its own character.

We see the same sorry abdication in the tortuously slow progress towards the
realisation of a credible European defence force. Sure, men in uniforms now walk
the EU's corridor's in Brussels. But significant extra spending on defence or a
radical shake-up of those European defence forces still designed for a cold war
conflict? Much too difficult. And what about a new strategic relationship with
Russia? Well, there have been a few declarations.

No doubt Mr Bush's visit will be followed by more hand-wringing about US
unilateralism. Many of the concerns are justified. But I wonder how many
Europeans will admit the obvious. As long as they duck the opportunity to shape
the destiny of the continent, Washington will do it for them.

philip.stephens@ft.com

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 14, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

President's dinner date sets tone for transatlantic ties

BYLINE: By PETER NORMAN

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 534 words

DATELINE: GOTHENBURG

President George W. Bush will have his first brush with the often bewildering
world of European Union politics today when he sits down for talks with the
representatives of the would-be European superpower: a team of ministers,
commissioners and senior officials led by Goran Persson, the prime minister of
Sweden, and Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission.

The talk between the world's two largest trading partners will include efforts
to kickstart a new round of trade liberalisation talks at November's World Trade
Organisation meeting and perhaps of recent successes in resolving disputes over
bananas and wheat gluten.

But Mr Bush will have to wait until the evening for the true test of the first
transatlantic summit since he took office. At a dinner, the first of its kind,
he will meet all the EU leaders together. It is here that he is expected to
discuss the transatlantic relationship in the context of the twin enlargements
of the EU and Nato.

The dinner will above all be important for setting the tone of relations at a
personal level between Mr Bush and the EU's leaders.

Mr Bush has clearly suffered a bad press ahead of this week's trip to Europe,
largely because of his rejection of the Kyoto agreement on climate change and
his anti-missile defence plans. But in earlier meetings with EU leaders he has
forged a good working relationship with Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, and
come to appreciate the ebullient nature of Jacques Chirac, the French president.

The relationship with Gerhard Schroder, the German chancellor, is less clear
cut, in part because of last month's leak of a German foreign ministry memo
detailing talks between the two men when they met in Washington in March.

The dinner will be an opportunity for Mr Bush to take the measure of the EU's
leaders as a group and see how they interact. They should also give him a chance
to expand on his ideas for developing his father's vision, when president, of a
"Europe whole and free" that would now include good relations with Russia and
Ukraine.

The day's earlier formal bilateral talks with the EU will also be marked by a
new effort to provide a greater impetus and focus for the relationship between
the two sides. There will be a single plenary meeting, rather than the series of
separate ministerial meetings that Washington felt bogged down previous summits,
leading to pressure from the US to reduce their frequency to once a year.

Disputes will still remain despite the change of format. On climate change, the
likeliest outcome is an agreement to disagree. On steel, Mr Prodi plans to
underline the EU's deep concern about US moves that could result in a blockage
of imports.

The Commission will also urge the new US administration to maintain the "truce"
that has so far restrained implementation of the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act
and the Helms-Burton law, which envisages sanctions for trading with Cuba.

But the summit should also emphasise how closely the EU and US work toget-her in
crisis areas of the Middle East and western Balkans and highlight plans for
greater co-operation on strategic issues, including fighting communicable
diseases and internationally organised crime.

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 12, 2001 Tuesday
USA Edition 2

Iran's election

SECTION: LEADER ; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 414 words

Iranians have handed the reformist president Mohammad Khatami another resounding
election victory, encouraging him to press ahead with efforts to establish a
more democratic and accountable government.

In theory, the renewed popular mandate should strengthen Mr Khatami's hand in
the long-running power struggle with conservatives. Unfortunately, the
experience of recent years suggests that his opponents have little respect for
the popular will.

Conservative clerics who control the judiciary, the armed forces and the
charitable foundations that dominate the economy are likely to continue their
attempts to undermine the president and roll back his reforms.

The landslide victory by reformists in last year's parliamentary election did
not prevent the conservatives from suppressing dissent. Since that election, the
hardliners have used the judiciary to close down virtually all reformist
newspapers and arrest several of the president's supporters.

Mr Khatami remains a force for stability in a volatile region, in spite of his
limited powers. His influence has been more pronounced in Iran's foreign
relations. He has improved ties with Arab neighbours and western governments and
paved the way for a healthy domestic debate over Iran's relations with the US.

In his second term, Mr Khatami can and should show more resolve. The west should
encourage him in that direction. European governments must make clear that
continued international backing depends on democratic progress at home as well
as Iran's behaviour in the region.

They also must warn against Iranian support for radical groups in the Middle
East and monitor closely allegations of Iranian attempts to acquire weapons of
mass destruction.

The Khatami victory should mark an opportunity for the US to relax its sanctions
against Tehran and broaden the dialogue between the two civil societies. The
unilateral sanctions have had limited impact and have hurt US companies.

The Bush administration is constrained by congressional resistance, as evidenced
by the campaign under way to renew the controversial Iran/Libya Sanctions Act,
which seeks to punish non-US companies investing in the two countries. But the
administration should try to reach a compromise with Congress, at least to limit
ILSA's renewal period.

Mr Khatami's re-election is unlikely to bring radical change to Iran. But his
presence remains a moderating influence on the Islamic republic's foreign
relations - and that deserves encouragement.

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 11, 2001 Monday
Surveys CAN1

Break up of rail giant is end of era

BYLINE: By KEN WARN

SECTION: SURVEY - CANADA ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 907 words

Canadian Pacific, the company that built the coast-to-coast railway that helped
bind Canada together in the 19th century, will cease to exist in its present
form later this year. In February CP, an icon of corporate Canada, bowed to
pressure from shareholders who had long urged the company to shake off its
holding company discount.

After briefly looking at various permutations, the company decided to split its
five business divisions into separately quoted companies. The break-up marks the
end of an era and the ongoing demise of conglomerates in the face of global
financial pressures. The five new companies will have to find their way in
Canada's changing corporate landscape.

At CP's Calgary headquarters, there is sadness at the break-up among employees,
many of whom are seeking jobs elsewhere in the fast-growing local economy.

But at the highest levels of the company, there is no doubt that they have hit
upon the right plan. "There are no regrets," says CP's chief executive David
O'Brien. "This was clearly the best course of action. In the more sophisticated
financial markets conglomerates are steadily disappearing. People want to follow
a particular sector."

With formal approvals expected in the summer, followed by a vote of
shareholders, the split-up is expected to go ahead in October. Under the terms
of the break-up, the group's hotel and property interests will remain as the
only significant asset of the existing company. CP shareholders will receive new
shares in the spun-off operations.

Those operations comprise PanCanadian Petroleum, of which CP owns about 86 per
cent, and the group's 100 per cent stakes in Canadian Pacific Railway, CP Ships
and Fording Coal.

Investors seem to have taken to the break-up plan. The company's shares, which
were hovering just above CDollars 40 in early February, were trading above
CDollars 60 for most of last month.

However, as roadshows get under way this month, one problem is how to interest
shareholders and analysts in the group's smallest components. Interest in the
group has focused overwhelmingly on the two biggest businesses, energy and rail,
and not in what Mr O'Brien has called the group's "little jewels".

PanCanadian accounts for about half of CP's CDollars 20bn market capitalisation,
followed by the railway, which accounts for 25 per cent. Fording, the smallest,
comprises barely 7 per cent.

Both the hotel and shipping businesses have been growing faster than the railway
business in recent years, says Mr O'Brien, and have "potentially more upside"
than the rail division.

Shipping has little following among portfolio investors outside Asia, where
there are several quoted shipping companies. However, CP sees itself as leading
a trend within the industry in the west in seeking stock market listings.

The hotels division faced the same dilemma as many Canadian businesses - how to
expand beyond the confines of the small domestic market, especially since the
Canadian dollar has been steadily weakening against its US counterpart.

The company in recent years has leveraged its historic assets base - the hotels
built for the railway's customers - and transformed itself into the largest
luxury hotel operator in North America.

With the railway division facing a slowing North American economy, the jewel in
the CP crown remains PanCanadian. There is speculation about how all five of the
newly independent companies will fare in their respective sectors, and whether
they are likely to become buyers or targets in future consolidations.

But that speculation is particularly focused on PanCanadian, the dominant
producer in southern Alberta and one of Canada's most profitable energy
companies.

The company has an extraordinary asset base, stemming from its legacy from the
railway.

As an inducement to build the railway, CP was granted rights over much of the
land over which the railway passed. As a result, PanCanadian owns the mineral
rights in perpetuity over about 6.5m acres, primarily in Alberta.

The company pays a mineral tax of just 5 per cent to 6 per cent on production
from this land, whereas oil and gas companies have to pay royalties of 25 per
cent to 26 per cent on Crown land, which constitutes most of Canada's oil and
gas acreage.

Critics from Canada's other energy companies claim that PanCanadian has not been
aggressive enough in making acquisitions beyond its key land holdings in the
mature Western Canada basin.

"I bristle at the criticism that we have not been aggressive," says David Tuer,
PanCanadian's chief executive. He denies that the company has been over-cautious
as a result of being under CP's wing and maintains management has worked hard to
represent the interests of minority shareholders.

But undoubtedly PanCanadian will change when the link with CP ends. It carries
less debt than its competitors, says Mr Tuer, and will be looking to invest,
especially outside Canada. "But I would hate to build into our strategic plan
the necessity of an acquisition."

PanCanadian has already made moves overseas, including a North Sea acquisition
and securing offshore Brazilian acreage - where the company could start drilling
next year. In the longer term, the company expects to become active in Libya.

"If they execute well, there is no reason why they should not remain
independent," says one Calgary-based energy executive. "But if they don't, like
with the rest of us, someone could swallow them up."

Ken Warn

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 5, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

The captain of a very French multinational: INTERVIEW THIERRY DESMAREST,
TOTALFINAELF: The oilman insists the era of state control is over. But many
still regard his company as France's national champion, write David Buchan and
Victor Mallet:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and VICTOR MALLET

SECTION: INSIDE TRACK ; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 1454 words

The days when French oil was an arm of the French state arelong gone. Corruption
cases involving Elf Aquitaine and themurkier side of French foreign policy are
still being heardin the Paris courts. Last month a former French foreign
minister and a former head of Elf received prison sentences. But Elf was
privatised in the mid-1990s and the era of blatant state interference came to a
definitive close last year when TotalFina took over Elf.

Thierry Desmarest, the Total career oilman who now runs the TotalFinaElf group,
personifies thechange. Under his stewardship, Total achieved an enviable
professional reputation for finding oil at the lowest cost in the industry. The
old jibe from its rivals that Total CFP, the former company name, stood for
"Total can't find petroleum" had been turned on its head.

Yet, from an interview with Mr Desmarest at the top of his group's 48- storey
tower at La Defense, Paris's business quarter, it becomes clear that the
emergence of TotalFinaElf as the world's fourth largest listed oil company has
been a very French affair.

Even if oil policy is no longer foreign policy, oil remains a highly political
industry. Most of TotalFinaElf's profits come from outside France, as do most of
its shareholders, and asked whether the company is "now really independent" of
the French government, Mr Desmarest replies "absolutely".

Yet there is the sense that the company, the country's biggest by market
capitalisation, will remain a French "national champion" in the eyes of the
people and politicians of France - with all the benefits and burdens that
implies.

The new group is largely the result of the merger of two large French companies,
quite eclipsing Total's cross-border acquisition of Petrofina of Belgium in
1999. As a result, TotalFinaElf has little of the multinational flavour that
marks Royal Dutch/Shell, the long-established Anglo-Dutch major, or BP, which in
the past three years has swallowed two US oil companies.

Bedding down the merger has been Mr Desmarest's big task. He arrived at the
company as a product of the government elite at Total 20 years ago but made his
way up through the exploration and production division. He became head of that
division in 1989 and then succeeded Serge Tchuruk as chief executive in 1995.

Seventy per cent of the synergies and cost savings from the merger with Elf and
Petrofina should come from better use of existing assets rather than job cuts,
Mr Desmarest claims. Most of these will be in refining and marketing. In the UK,
the three old companies each had a 4 per cent market share; these can be run
together with common logistics, procurement, advertising and branding. In
France, the merger helps the task of producing cleaner fuels, because the
refineries and petrochemical plants the company needs for this can now be linked
by pipeline and barge. The tendency for

Total to build refineries on the coast and Elf to build inland, has enabled
TotalFinaElf to link refineries right along the Seine and Rhone valleys.

Mr Desmarest also hopes to weave together the cultures of Total and Elf,
especially on the exploration and production side which swallows two-thirds of
his investment budget. Elf had the reputation for being "a technical pioneer,
and for taking risks", he says, while Total was a "clever follower" that made
the most of techniques developed by others as well as adopting strict financial
accountability. "With the size of TotalFinaElf," he says, "we can't just be a
'clever follower'."

Even in the restructuring, Total-Elf has been obliged to acknowledge its
responsibilities. "As France's largest company by far, we have to take
particular care that (our) employee adjustment plans are considered politically
acceptable by public opinion," Mr Desmarest says. The 4,000 redundancies flowing
from the merger are to be split equally between France and abroad. But the 2,000
foreign jobs have already been axed, while those in France are voluntary,
negotiated with the trade unions and will be largely finished only by the end of
this year.

Redundancies are "more difficult in continental Europe than in the UK and the
US, where adjustments are made immediately," explains Mr Desmarest.

In other ways, however, being French offers the group scope that other oil
multinationals cannot always exploit. In particular, the new group has a
typically French freedom to operate where it wants in the world.

For instance, TotalFinaElf has discussed with Iraq the development of such
oilfields as Majnoun and Bin Umar - though it will not sign any deal until UN
sanctions are lifted, Mr Desmarest insists.

The French group faces none of the unilateral sanctions that are imposed on US
companies. Hence, TotalFinaElf pursues a line independent of the US by, say,
going into Iran in defiance of US congressional sanctions (which attempt to
impose a secondary boycott on foreign companies investing in Iran and Libya).
Such a boycott can inhibit even non-US companies such as BP, which feels it has
to respect the US line because of its American assets. By contrast, the French
group has few assets in the US - other than in chemicals, which are largely
invisible to consumers (and therefore to congressmen).

And Mr Desmarest says he does not feel the lack of US oil assets, even with
President George W. Bush's new policy of encouraging US domestic energy
production. Apart from the chemicals, the only area of interest to him in the US
is deep-water exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Onshore, "the US has some of
the most mature (oil) zones in the world and the scale of finds is generally
small".

TotalFinaElf has set itself a global target of increasing its oil and gas output
by 6 per cent a year up to 2005 and Mr Desmarest points out that in recent years
even the US majors have been switching their spending on exploration and
production outside the US.

Indeed, Mr Desmarest claims one of the reasons for Total's above-average
performance in finding and pumping oil has been its relative neglect of the US
in favour of newer zones such as west Africa and the Caspian Sea. Another factor
has been its willingness to use new techniques on established fields in
Thailand, Algeria, Iran, Qatar and Venezuela. As a result, "our cost of finding
oil has averaged 70 cents a barrel over the past five years".

In the quest for contracts, Mr Desmarest acknowledges government help. "There
are some areas of the world, such as the Middle East, that are particular hot
spots and where it is important to have the support of your government for a
contract." But there is nothing unusual about this, he claims. "When one sees a
US president picking up the phone to support US companies, I don't see why our
government shouldn't do the same."

This support from France's generally pro-Arab government probably has something
to do with the fact that TotalFinaElf has a wider spread of operations in the
Middle East than any other big group except for Shell. It has also won part of
Saudi Arabia's new big gas contracts, signed last weekend.

Although French foreign policy has been a help in the Middle East, it may have
been a hindrance in China, because of French arms sales to Taiwan. If so, Mr
Desmarest does not seem dismayed. He takes a cool view of the Chinese market
into which other oil majors have been scrambling. "The market may be very
promising. But it is not easy to make profits - ask those who invested in China,
some of them 15 years ago. You have to be very selective in investments. China
has some excellent businessmen who are happy to keep the profits for themselves
and the losses for their partners."

Now, the mix of oil politics is shifting. As one of the world's big oil groups,
TotalFinaElf finds its performance in terms of social, environmental and human
rights policies coming under ever more scrutiny. The 55-year-old Mr Desmarest
acknowledges the need to respond to such concerns.

Even so, in Burma, for instance, TotalFinaElf has been left in peace to invest.
The French government has pressed TotalFinaElf to ensure that it is not using
forced or child labour, while the company itself is running local social
programmes. But Paris is not pushing Mr Desmarest to go any further. By
contrast, Premier, a small British oil company, has come under public pressure
from the UK government to quit the country on the grounds that its investment
there is helping to prop up the military regime.

"The French government is perfectly aware - and we agree - that it is not for
private companies to take it upon themselves to get governments (such as Burma)
to change their policies," he says. It is the kind of comment to make UK and US
oil executives envy the quintessential Frenchness of TotalFinaElf.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 24, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

US moves to extend sanctions

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 24 words

US moves to extend sanctions

The US Congress is set to renew its economic sanctions on Iran and Libya,
perhaps for up to five years. Page 12

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 24, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

US Congress moves to extend sanctions IRAN AND LIBYA PRE-EMPTIVE ACTION MAY
COMPLICATE US ADMINISTRATION'S POLICY TOWARDS SANCTIONS AND CASPIAN SEA O:

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 459 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The US is set to renew its economic sanctions on Iran and Libya, perhaps for up
to five years, despite the Bush administration's promise of a thorough review of
US sanctions policy.

The pre-emptive move by the US Congress will seriously complicate both the
administration's effort to re-think US sanctions, and its desire to expand US
access to new oil and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea region.

Representative Benjamin Gilman and Howard Berman yesterday introduced
legislation to extend the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) for five years. The
bill has more than 180 co-sponsors in the House, and could be pushed to a vote
as early as next month, well in advance of the August 5 expiry of ILSA.

On the Senate side, a companion bill has more than 60 co-sponsors, a solid
majority.

ILSA allows for US sanctions against any foreign company that invests in the
development of oil and gas resources in Iran or Libya. The bill has particularly
angered the European Union, which says that the US has no right to punish
foreign companies that are obeying the laws of their own countries. The White
House in March extended for one year an executive order that similarly bars US
companies from Iran.

The Bush administration had been expected to push for an easing of the Iran and
Libya sanctions. US oil companies with close ties to top Bush officials,
including Vice-President Dick Cheney and Commerce Secretary Don Evans, are eager
to resume operations in oil-rich Iran.

Also, the administration immediately launched a review of sanctions policy, and
has been working to ease the embargo on Iraq.

But congressional proponents of the sanctions regime, backed by the powerful
pro-Israel lobby, have moved aggressively to head off any debate over ILSA.

William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a business
group that opposes sanctions, admits it will be "an uphill battle" to block
extension of ILSA. "The important thing will be what position the administration
takes."

But the administration has yet to take a position on ILSA renewal, leaving the
issue to the congressional hard-liners. The State Department is understood to
favour a shorter renewal of two years, and wants to broaden provisions allowing
the president to waive the sanctions.

The US waived sanctions in 1998 against Total of France, Gazprom of Russia and
Malaysia's Petronas, and reached agreement with the EU on co-operative
approaches towards Iran.

That agreement is expected to stand under the ILSA extension, which could blunt
EU anger over the law remaining on the books. The US has been examining a number
of other foreign oil industry investments in Iran, however, and will come under
growing pressure either to issue further waivers or to invoke sanctions.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 23, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

Prospects bleak for US links with Iran: As Congress reviews US sanctions, the
relationship has been exacerbated by the Israeli conflict, writes Guy Dinmore

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 999 words

The Iran-US relationship is approaching a critical juncture. Congress and the
Bush administration are soon to complete a review of sanctions, while the
factional struggle in Tehran focuses on the presidential election next month
amid new allegations of a US-backed plot against the Islamic system.

Five months ago, the arrival of George W. Bush raised expectations on both sides
that the US would ease its unilateral economic embargo, and Iran's clerical
rulers would respond by taking the first steps to end their boycott of direct
political contact with "the enemy".

Instead, the long-troubled relationship is deteriorating further, mostly
exacerbated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also by divisions over
foreign policy within the Iranian leadership.

In an unexpected development, state television late last night announced that a
CIA spy had been hanged in Evin Jail on Sunday.

It said Mohammed Reza Pedram had confessed to spying during Iran's war with Iraq
in the 1980s and had been hanged after the Supreme Court had rejected his
appeal.

"It seems there is now no ray of hope, and the US will continue with sanctions,"
said Ali Hashemi, member of the Iranian parliament's energy commission and
former deputy oil minister, before last night's announcement. "But I don't agree
with the view that Iran is not able to expand its production capacity without
the US. We can easily do it with the Europeans, Asians and Australians."

This growing non-American involvement in Iran's oil and gas sector is at the
heart of debate within Congress over what to do with the Iran-Libya Sanctions
Act (ILSA) when its five-year lifespan expires on August 5.

ILSA was intended in 1996 to level the playing field between US oil companies
and their competitors by allowing the US to punish foreign companies investing
more than Dollars 20m in the energy sectors of Iran or Libya.

A year earlier, Bill Clinton, then president, cited Iran as a threat to national
security and issued two executive orders blocking virtually all US commerce with
Iran. The aim was to deprive Tehran of the money to develop weapons of mass
destruction and pursue acts of "terrorism".

Congress has started hearing testimony over ILSA and debate has been fierce.
There is a general recognition that if ILSA is left to lapse then Mr Bush would
lift the ban on US oil companies.

Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House sub-committee on the Middle East and
South Asia who supports a five-year extension for ILSA, claimed Iranian
"behaviour" was worsening, in its training of "terrorists" and in arms
production.

He dismissed arguments that the US must somehow support Mohammad Khatami, Iran's
moderate president. "It doesn't matter how many liberal French philosophers
Khatami has read. He hasn't understood their true message," he declared. "We
cannot send a signal of lack of resolve to the rulers of Iran."

Howard Kohr, head of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
quoted from a recent State Department report that branded Iran as "most active
state sponsor of terrorism in 2000" with increased support to groups at war with
Israel such as Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Leaders of the three groups were among Islamic delegations who met at a Tehran
conference last month to back the Palestinian intifada (uprising). Both Mr
Khatami and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, vehemently denounced
Israel, whose right to exist as a state is not recognised by Iran.

Although Iran denies giving military support to anti-Israeli groups, diplomats
in Tehran said the conference was hugely damaging to Iran's image in the west,
which had been much improved by Mr Khatami over the past four years.

US opponents of ILSA include more than 600 companies and institutes, grouped
under USA Engage. William Reinsch, vice-chairman of USA Engage, told Congress
that ILSA was "a very blunt instrument and a failed unilateral policy".

Speakers also pointed out that ILSA had never been enforced, largely out of
concern about provoking a trade war with the European Union. Mr Clinton issued a
waiver in the case of Total, the French oil group that was awarded a contract by
Iran to develop an oilfield originally given to Conoco.

Many US groups such as Halliburton and Schlumberger, world leaders in oil
services, have also found ways around US sanctions to continue Iran business,
raising charges of double standards.

The Bush administration has yet to take a view on ILSA and no decision is
expected before Iran's presidential election on June 8. US commentators say
there is wide support in Congress for renewing the act, possibly for two years,
but Mr Bush could probably prevent it.

An energy task force chaired by Dick Cheney, the vice-president and former head
of Halliburton, has recommended a review of all US sanctions, suggesting their
impact on US energy supplies should be considered.

Even if Mr Bush does decide on a change of policy towards Iran, two recent
developments could yet derail smooth progress.

The New Yorker magazine reported on May 14 that Louis Freeh, director of the
FBI, had given the administration a list of people, he says should be indicted
in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US servicemen.
Iran has denied any involvement.

Last Thursday, Tehran's Revolutionary Court accused the CIA, acting through
Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, of funding Iranian nationalists plotting
against the Islamic regime.

More than 60 opposition activists have been arrested in Iran over the past two
months in connection with the alleged plot. Reformists in Tehran see the arrests
and allegations as an attempt by the hardline judiciary to undermine Mr Khatami
ahead of the election.

Control of foreign policy is disputed between Mr Khatami and his hardline
rivals. Conservative clerics are believed to be opposed to any political
relationship with the US and possibly even significant participation by US oil
companies in developing Iran's resources.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 21, 2001 Monday
London Edition 2

OMV plans stake in PKN Orlen

BYLINE: By ERIC FREY and JOHN REED

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE INTERNATIONAL ; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 234 words

DATELINE: VIENNA and WARSAW

OMV, the Austrian oil company, is interested in buying 18 per cent of Poland's
PKN Orlen and will ask shareholders to approve a capital increase this week to
fund it.

If successful, the sale would mark the biggest step yet in a proposed defensive
alliance of central European oil companies.

Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, OMV's deputy chief executive, confirmed yesterday his
company will ask shareholders for a capital increase on Wednesday sufficient to
cover the cost of buying the PKN shares, now held by the Polish state.

He did not disclose the amount, but PKN's current share price would value the
stake at at least Dollars 350m.

Poland has not formally announced a tender for the PKN tranche. Mr Ruttenstorfer
cautioned that no timing has been set for a rights issue by the Austrian
company, and the proposed sale is nowhere near closing and may go to another
bidder.

But Aldona Kamela-Sowinska, Poland's treasury minister, favours a strategic sale
and OMV is the only serious bidder for the stake, sources close to the
government said.

PKN is Poland's largest company and post-communist central Europe's largest oil
concern, with 25.4bn zlotys (Dollars 6.3bn) in revenues last year,
three-quarters of Polish refining and a 40 per cent share of its retail petrol
market.

OMV's share price has risen sharply in recent days, but market rumours in Vienna
had linked the jump to a recent oil find in Libya.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 18, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

US plans to boost energy production

BYLINE: By NANCY DUNNE and STEPHEN FIDLER

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 266 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

George W. Bush yesterday unveiled his long-awaited national energy plan, mixing
proposals to boost oil, gas and nuclear power production with conservation
measures in an effort to avert the threat of power cuts.

"If we fail to act, this country could face a darker future," Mr Bush said.

"If we fail to act, Americans will face more and more widespread blackouts . . .
our country will become more reliant on foreign crude oil."

The plan, which follows the recommendations of a task force led by
Vice-President Dick Cheney, attempts to address demand, supply and delivery
systems, Mr Bush said. America faced the most serious energy shortage since the
oil embargoes of the 1970s, the plan warned.

Mr Bush said the proposals would use technology to increase efficiency and curb
demand; expand and diversify sources of energy including boosting nuclear power;
and modernise distribution networks to provide the energy where it was needed.

"Diversity is important not only for energy security but also for national
security. Over-dependence on any one source of energy, especially a foreign
source, leaves us vulnerable to price shocks, supply interruptions and, in the
worst case, blackmail," he told an audience of business leaders in St Paul,
Minnesota.

The task force avoided the question of whether US sanctions should be relaxed
against states such as Libya and Iran. It proposed instead a review of sanctions
by the Commerce, State and Treasury departments. "Energy security should be
considered in such a review," the report said. Reaction, Page 8 Editorial
Comment and analysis, Page 16

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 18, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

White House to review oil sanctions

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 351 words

The White House energy task force yesterday called for a review of foreign
sanctions to "minimise their costs on US citizens and interests", but stopped
short of calling for an easing of unilateral US bans on Iran, Libya or Iraq.

Several US oil company leaders had lobbied Vice-President Dick Cheney, who had
been one of their number as head until last year of Halliburton, the world's
largest oil services company, to relax unilateral sanctions. Such sanctions
merely handicapped US companies compared with their foreign rivals, they argued.

But because of the sensitivity of this issue, the task force, chaired by Mr
Cheney, confined itself to calling for a general review of sanctions, both
unilaterally by the US as on Iran and Libya and in conjunction with the United
Nations as on Iraq. Energy security, in terms of the US gaining adequate
supplies, should be considered in this review, the report said.

As a holding action, pending this review, President Bush recently renewed for
another year a US executive order banning US oil company investment in Iran.
This order dated from 1995, when the previous Clinton administration blocked
Conoco from carrying out a contract in Iran. Conoco has since been an outspoken
opponent of unilateral sanctions.

Of the task force's 105 recommendations, 25 concerned foreign initiatives,
designed mainly to foster co-operation with energy producing states in the
western hemisphere, the Middle East and central Asia. The report called for more
gas and power links with Canada and Mexico, and for negotiations on an
investment treaty with Venezuela and for energy consultations with Brazil.

It said commercial conditions should be fostered to give oil companies operating
in Kazakhstan the option of shipping crude through the US-backed Caspian
pipeline across Azerbaijan to Turkey. Chevron has a big operation in Kazakhstan.
The report also welcomed initiatives by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria and United
Arab Emirates to allow foreign investors back into their energy sectors.
ExxonMobil is believed to be poised to win some big gas contracts in Saudi
Arabia.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 18, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

Heat and light: The Cheney task force has proposed wide-ranging remedies for the
US energy crisis. But, argue David Buchan and Nancy Dunne, some of the problems
identified may be exaggerated:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and NANCY DUNNE

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 1361 words

President George Bush yesterday called on Americans to meet their "most serious
energy crisis since the oil embargoes of the 1970s". He proposed a vast array of
remedies, some of them radical - such as a federal role in creating a national
electricity grid and the first rethink of nuclear power for a quarter-century.

Perhaps inevitably, there is hype as well as reality in the way the Bush
administration has outlined both the problem and the solution.

Rising energy prices hardly constitute a big crisis. In nominal terms, the
average petrol price reached a record Dollars 1.713 (Pounds 1.20) a gallon last
week before it began sliding this week. But in real terms, the peak was below
the levels of the 1970s.

The problem of paying more at the pump or for home heating pales, however,
beside the economic disruption and social hardship caused by the persistent
electricity blackouts seen in California, which are predicted to spread soon to
other areas including New York.

Such localised energy crises are the result of inadequate transmission
facilities and refining capacity. According to the administration's energy plan,
produced by a task force headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney, US oil
consumption will increase by 33 per cent, natural gas consumption by more than
50 per cent and demand for electricity by 45 per cent by 2020.

These increases, even with the administration's energy conservation proposals,
far exceed current production. "As important as conservation is, it doesn't
close the gap between supply and demand," says Mr Cheney.

The Cheney task force report claims: "Our energy crisis has been years in the
making and will take years to put fully behind us." But the very scope of the
163 pages, with 105 recommendations, 12 executive orders, 73 directives to
federal agencies and 20 proposals for Congressional action, will undoubtedly
lead to exaggerated expectations of swift action.

Many directives to agencies are only requests for studies. One or two, such as
the presidential order to all agencies to try to curb their energy usage, could
have a wide, but inevitably slow, impact. None of them are instant solutions.

California's electricity woes and high petrol prices lend momentum to Mr Bush's
message of crisis. But Phil Clapp of the National Environmental Trust, an
independent Washington-based group, notes the report offers nothing for
California's problems. "The energy message to California is: 'Drop dead'," he
says.

There is irony in the proposal by an inherently laisser faire Republican
administration to expand the federal government's role in the US energy market.
While in theory many Democrats might not object, in practice the bias of federal
intervention towards relaxing environmental restrictions will inevitably stiffen
opposition.

"The challenge will be to get a bipartisan consensus (on the energy plan)", says
Robin West of Petroleum Finance, a leading Washington consultancy. "The
Republicans are very concerned about the political dangers of being blamed for
high energy prices and blackouts and the Democrats are very excited by the
political opportunities of this - it's their first big one since the election."

Kim Wallace, energy analyst at Lehman Brothers, says it is hard to tell whether
the administration is "going through the motions as a form of political cover or
is earnestly interested in making new law".

Because so much of the Cheney report was leaked ahead of yesterday's
announcement, the least surprising element was the proposal to expand drilling
on federal land. This included the proposal to open 8 per cent of Alaska's
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploratory drilling, as well as to expand
operations in the Naval Petroleum Reserve, an area of Alaska long ago set aside
for a navy that now runs many of its ships on nuclear power. It also suggests
building, in conjunction with Canada, a pipeline to bring Alaskan gas to the
lower 48 US states, a proposal that has drawn little opposition from US
environmental groups.

In the western part of the 48 states, where the federal government is the
biggest single landowner, the administration proposes easing restrictions on oil
and gas drilling.

But even with increased drilling, natural gas production is likely to fall far
behind rapidly growing demand. As a result, the administration is pushing
diversification.

The main alternative energy source is coal, which generates about half of US
energy supply. With 250 years-worth of reserves, it is America's most plentiful
- but most polluting - energy resource. The administration wants to maintain
this share by cleaner coal-burning technology, on which it proposes to spend
Dollars 2bn during the next decade.

One of the plan's most controversial proposals is its support for nuclear power,
a sector that still generates 20 per cent of the nation's electricity - and 40
per cent in 10 north-eastern states - despite heavy official constraints. No new
operating permits have been granted for nuclear plants since the 1979 accident
at Three Mile Island. But the nuclear industry expects permission this year for
construction of at least one nuclear plant, an industry representative said
yesterday.

Mr Cheney claims "people are much more rational" about nuclear power now. In
that belief, his report proposes speedier re-licensing of existing reactors and
approval of any new ones, tax breaks for buying nuclear plants and an extension
of federal-backed insurance against nuclear accidents.

In what may be a historic reversal in dealing with nuclear waste, the
administration is even studying a return to reprocessing spent uranium.
President Jimmy Carter abandoned reprocessing in the late 1970s on the grounds
that such a process - which produces weapons-grade plutonium - set a dangerous
example and that, in any case, uranium was cheap enough not to have to recycle
it.

These factors probably still hold. But the readiness of the administration to
study reprocessing shows it is serious about dealing with the nuclear waste
problem.

To blunt the expected environmentalist attack on its package, the administration
has stressed that of its 105 recommendations, 42 bear on conservation and
renewable energy. Some of these were rejected by Republicans in Congress, when
they were proposed by President Bill Clinton. Congress refused to allow the
Clinton administration to raise fuel economy standards in new cars.

Fuel efficiency standards have saved a lot of petrol since they were introduced
in the mid-1970s. But they have not been raised for some years. If they were,
the Bush administration might find there was more petrol to be "discovered" in
the nation's car tanks than in Alaska.

Politically, the administration's trickiest task will be to give some national
dimension to the country's fragmented and inadequate infrastructure. It will
mainly have to confine itself to exhortation. States and local communities are
to be urged to drop their various petrol standards; these standards, imposed in
the name of cleaner local air, complicate distribution. States will also be
urged to allow new refineries.

In one area, the Bush administration considers a more forceful decision - to
give the federal government the same right to locate electricity transmission
lines as it has over gas pipelines. Patchwork deregulation has left the country
with a fragmented, incomplete power grid.

Such a right of "eminent domain" to acquire property for power pylons would only
be a "last resort" but an essential one, the Edison Electrical Institute said
yesterday. The institute calculates the next decade will require 30,000 miles of
new power lines, of which only 7,600 are on the drawing board. But it will be
far harder to establish a national grid today than it was, say, to build
railways across 19th-century America.

The Cheney plan ranges beyond domestic energy to propose greater hemispheric
co-operation with Canada and Mexico. It also proposes a general review of
unilateral US sanctions that shut US companies out of countries such as Iran and
Libya. But it failed to make a firm recommendation. Having tackled so many other
difficult issues, its courage failed it here.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 14, 2001 Monday
USA Edition 2

Policy creep

SECTION: LEADER ; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 412 words

Securities market regulation does not often have much to do with foreign policy.
Yet in the US the two have recently become awkwardly interlinked.

US companies are forbidden to do business with a certain group of countries
under embargo, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, North Korea, Burma and China.
Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission plans to require foreign companies
listing in the US to disclose their business interests in those countries.

According to the SEC, this action is justified on the grounds that such dealings
are "likely to be significant to a reasonable investor's decision about whether
to invest in that company".

The argument is that just as the potential costs of environmental damage, or a
lawsuit, should be revealed to investors, so should the potential costs of doing
business with a pariah state.

Most obviously, this means the risk that the US may extend the reach of its
sanctions policy to touch foreign firms, as it has already done in a limited way
with the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. In addition, more arguably, the company could
be the subject of a backlash, in Congress or among the general public, that
could affect its share price.

There is some logic in this. But it is hard to see the SEC's policy change as
anything but politically motivated. It came in response to a congressional
report that explicitly pushed the idea of using the financial markets as a way
of making sanctions work, particularly with regard to companies doing business
in Sudan.

It is also regrettable that the new policy emphasis leaked out via a letter to a
congressman, rather than being publicly announced.

The affair highlights the inconsistencies in US sanctions policy. Sanctions are,
at best, a blunt policy tool. At worst, they do far more harm to the ordinary
people of a country than to its leader.

Some of the countries on the US list, such as Cuba, are there largely for
domestic political reasons, rather than because their regimes are particularly
reprehensible.

In other cases, such as that of Iran, the US has been slow to change its policy
to reflect the progress that has taken place. Given these problems, Congress's
determination to make the sanctions more broad-ranging appears even less
justified.

So far, the SEC is demanding only greater disclosure and is not threatening to
deny listings to companies doing business with the countries concerned. But the
creep of foreign policy into market regulation should go no further.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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1128 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

May 11, 2001 Friday
USA Edition 1

SEC seeks closer watch on overseas groups

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 481 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is planning to demand sharply
increased disclosure from overseas companies listed in the US that are doing
business with countries under US embargo.

The decision, which could be overturned by Harvey Pitt, whom the Bush
administration plans to nominate as SEC chairman, marks an unprecedented mixing
of capital markets regulation with US foreign policy concerns.

It is spelt out in a May 8 letter from Laura Unger, acting SEC chairman, to
Frank Wolf, the Republican who chairs the House of Representatives
appropriations subcommittee responsible for the SEC.

In the letter, obtained by the Financial Times, Ms Unger says the SEC will now
require overseas companies to disclose if they are doing business in any country
where US companies would be prohibited from investing. These include Iran, Iraq,
Libya, Sudan, North Korea, Burma and Cuba.

The embargo also embraces companies targeted for weapons proliferation.

Ms Unger wrote: "Our aim is to make available to investors additional
information about situations in which the material proceeds of an offering could
- however indirectly - benefit countries, governments, or entities that, as a
matter of US foreign policy, are off-limits to US companies."

The commitments are spelt out as initiatives to be carried out by the SEC staff,
and are accompanied by a detailed staff memorandum. Except for a small change
requiring electronic filing by overseas companies, the move does not demand a
formal rule but can be implemented under existing SEC authority.

The SEC action responds to a growing campaign by human rights groups aimed at
restricting the ability of companies doing business in war-racked Sudan to raise
money on US markets.

Mr Wolf demanded last month that the SEC suspend trading in the stock of
PetroChina and Talisman Energy, the Chinese and Canadian oil companies.
PetroChina's parent company is the largest investor in a consortium extracting
oil in Sudan. Talisman holds a smaller share.

Mr Wolf claimed both com-panies had failed to disclose to investors the risks of
their involvement in Sudan.

Ms Unger said the SEC had no authority to deny US listings because of a
company's involvement with any particular foreign country, but would require
fuller disclosure of these investments.

The SEC, which normally does only selective reviews of disclosure filings, said
it would attempt to review all registration statements filed by overseas
companies with business in embargoed countries.

The SEC would work closely on the issue with the Office of Foreign Assets
Control, the Treasury agency that administers US economic sanctions. The SEC
"fully supports duly imposed economic sanctions and will co-operate with
appropriate US governmental agencies to help ensure that those sanctions are
enforced," the letter said. Pitt set to head SEC, Page 19
www.ft.com/globaleconomy

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1129 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

May 11, 2001 Friday
USA Edition 1

SEC chief inherits disclosure bombshell CAPITAL MARKETS WATCHDOG'S EXPANDED ROLE
MAY CAUSE SEA CHANGE IN THE WAY FOREIGN COMPANIES LIST IN US:

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: US AND CANADA ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 828 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

Laura Unger, the acting chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission,
has handed a bombshell to her successor Harvey L. Pitt.

Mr Pitt, who was nominated yesterday by President George W. Bush to head the
SEC, will be given the task of implementing a decision that significantly
expands the SEC's role in ensuring that foreign companies listing in the US do
not run foul of US sanctions policy.

The decision was conveyed in a letter this week from Ms Unger to Rep. Frank
Wolf, who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee with authority over the
SEC and is co-chair of the House human rights caucus.

The SEC, under its existing authority to require full disclosure, has declared
that investments in countries under US sanctions are a significant material risk
to investors.

While the US government has never been shy about using sanctions as a foreign
policy tool, there has been great reluctance, particularly from the US Treasury,
to link these measures in any way to the US capital markets. The fear is that
companies could choose to list elsewhere if they believe US markets are tainted
by political considerations.

The SEC's move "could represent a sea change in the way in which foreign
registrants access the US capital markets", said Roger W Robinson Jr, chairman
of the William J Casey Institute, a Washington policy group with close ties to
conservative groups and human rights activists.

"National security, human rights and religious freedom concerns are now regarded
as potential material risks to investors," said Mr Robinson, who was a senior
National Security Council official in the Reagan administration.

While companies are already required in general terms to disclose political
risks, the new requirements are much more targeted. US-listed companies must now
spell out their dealings in places such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Burma and
Cuba, and the SEC has promised aggressive oversight to ensure that US investors
are fully aware of the risks they are taking in buying stocks or bonds in such
companies.

In a background memorandum from David Martin, the director of corporate finance,
the SEC says that such risks are not limited to the possibility that US
sanctions could directly hurt the company.

In addition, "if it is reasonably likely that public opposition to the company
would have a materially adverse effect on the operations of the company, this
risk would also need to be disclosed".

The decision is a big victory for human rights groups that have been trying to
influence share prices by urging investors to avoid companies doing business in
countries that violate human rights or religious freedoms. In effect, the SEC
has said that the campaigns are hurt ing the stock prices of controversial
companies.

The US focus has been on Sudan, where an 18-year civil war has claimed more than
2m lives. Mr Wolf has urged that PetroChina and Talisman Energy, two of the
companies involved in developing the Sudanese oil fields, be barred from trading
in the US.

The campaign scored its biggest success last year when it put pressure on public
pension funds and other investors to boycott a New York share offering by
PetroChina. The offering eventually yielded Dollars 2.9bn, a fraction of the
Dollars 10bn the company had been seeking.

Sudan activists, with the Casey Institute doing the research legwork, have also
been calling for broader restrictions on the ability of these companies to raise
funds in the US.

However, Ms Unger said in the letter that she had no authority to take such a
drastic step. But she said "we take very seriously" the charge made by Mr Wolf
that the two companies "may have failed to disclose material information" with
respect to their operations in Sudan. She would not say whether the two
companies are under investigation, but said the matter had been referred to the
SEC's enforcement division.

While the pressure has been focused on Sudan, Ms Unger's decision will have much
broader ramifications. Many foreign companies listing in the US, particularly
energy companies, have operations in countries under US embargo and will be
affected by the new requirements. The disclosure requirement affects any company
or entity that is covered by sanctions administered by the Treasury's Office of
Foreign Assets Control.

One foreign securities regulator said the decision is a significant departure
that introduces expanded political criteria into securities disclosure, on the
grounds that it might affect share value. He said it would lead to lobbying for
further measures by the SEC to demand additional disclosure on environmental or
broader human rights grounds.

The decision will also put new pressure on mutual funds and pension funds to
expand their assessments of the political risks of investing in certain
companies. While some funds already eschew these companies on ethical grounds,
the SEC's decision is a clear statement that the investments could pose a
financial risk as well.

LOAD-DATE: May 10, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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1130 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

May 11, 2001 Friday
London Edition 3

SEC plans to tighten rules on embargoes

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN and JOHN LABATE

SECTION: THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 570 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON and NEW YORK

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is planning to demand sharply
increased disclosure from foreign companies listed in the US that are doing
business with countries under US embargo.

The decision - which could yet be overturned by Harvey Pitt, whom the Bush
administration plans to nominate as SEC chairman - marks an unprecedented mixing
of capital markets regulation with US foreign policy concerns.

It is spelt out in a May 8 letter from Laura Unger, acting SEC chairman, to
Frank Wolf, the Republican who chairs the House of Representatives
appropriations subcommittee responsible for the SEC.

In the letter, obtained by the Financial Times, Ms Unger says the SEC will now
require foreign companies to disclose if they are doing business in any country
where US companies would be prohibited from investing.

These include Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, North Korea, Burma and Cuba as well as
some specific companies targeted for weapons proliferation.

"Our aim is to make available to investors additional information about
situations in which the material proceeds of an offering could - however
indirectly - benefit countries, governments or entities that, as a matter of US
foreign policy, are off-limits to US companies," Ms Unger wrote.

The commitments are spelt out as initiatives to be carried out by the SEC staff,
and are accompanied by a detailed staff memorandum. Except for a small change
requiring electronic filing by foreign companies, the move does not demand a
formal rule but can be implemented under existing SEC authority.

The SEC action responds to a growing campaign by human rights groups aimed at
restricting the ability of companies doing business in war-racked Sudan to raise
money on US markets.

Mr Wolf demanded last month the SEC suspend trading in the stock of PetroChina
and Talisman Energy, the Chinese and Canadian oil companies. PetroChina's parent
company is the largest investor in a consortium extracting oil in Sudan while
Talisman holds a smaller share.

Mr Wolf claimed both companies failed to disclose to investors the risks of
their involvement in Sudan.

Ms Unger said the SEC had no authority to deny US listings because of a
company's involvement with any particular foreign country but would henceforth
require fuller disclosure of these investments.

The SEC also said it would attempt to review all registration statements filed
by foreign companies which have business in embargoed countries.

Bush nominates securities lawyer as successor to Levitt

President George W. Bush yesterday named securities lawyer Harvey L. Pitt to
head the US Securities and Exchange Commission after one of the administration's
longest searches yet to fill a key post, John Labate writes from New York.

If approved by the Senate, Mr Pitt would replace Arthur Levitt, who stepped down
as chairman in February after more than eight years.

Mr Pitt, a partner at New York-based law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver &
Jacobson, is widely regarded as one of the country's leading experts on
securities law and one of its toughest litigators.

His long list of clients have included Ivan Boesky, for whom in 1986 he
negotiated a Dollars 100m settlement with SEC officials on insider trading
charges. Others include Lloyd's of London, the New York Stock Exchange, and all
"big five" accounting firms.

The move would return Mr Pitt, 56, to the SEC, where he worked for a decade
after law school.

LOAD-DATE: May 10, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 10, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

Double standard

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 412 words

The US has suffered a grievous diplomatic defeat with the loss of its seat on
the United Nations Human Rights Commission. For more than 50 years, ever since
Eleanor Roosevelt helped create the body, the commission has spotlighted abuses.
When it has spoken up, the US has been supportive.

Americans are not the only ones asking why countries such as Libya, Pakistan and
Sudan are judged to be better qualified to sit on the commission. The US may
have been complacent ahead of last week's secret vote but this does not justify
a result of breathtaking double standards.

Some have excused voting off the US as a necessary come-uppance. Thus China,
backed by fellow members Cuba, Libya and Vietnam, mobilised discontent over
Washington's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the
International Criminal Court and the Ottawa treaty on landmines. Others point to
disagreement with the Bush administration's plans to build a missile defence
shield and in effect scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

The Bush team insists it intends to stick to a hard-headed pursuit of the
national interest. Multilateralism is not a good in itself, as a senior US
official told the FT this week. However, officials admit that high-handedness
risks triggering resentment among potential adversaries such as China as well as
allies in Europe.

The administration and the US Congress should not respond to the UN vote by
withholding back dues or taking other punitive action. This would simply invite
retaliation. It would also hand another gift to countries with dubious human
rights records. They have every interest in turning the commission into a
talking shop.

The administration should instead pursue constructive engagement on commission
issues. This could include support for resolutions supporting lower-cost access
to HIV/Aids drugs, especially now that big pharmaceutical companies recognise
they have a case to answer.

There are also lessons for US allies. The three seats allocated to western
countries went to three members of the European Union: France, Sweden and
Austria (whose coalition government was ostracised last year by other EU
governments for including Jorg Haider's rightwing Freedom party). So much for
consistency.

The EU should work to ensure that the US is voted back on the panel next year.
Whatever the present strains, there is more to unite than divide America and
Europe. Especially when it comes to democratic values and human rights.

LOAD-DATE: May 9, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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1132 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

May 9, 2001 Wednesday
Surveys EGY1

Hard scene on screen as new firm reels into action: THE FILM INDUSTRY by Roula
Khalaf: A new operator using Wall Street-style tactics is upsetting traditional
film-makers

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: SURVEY - EGYPT ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 793 words

Youssef Chahine, Egypt's award-winning film director, is seething with anger.
Much of it directed against the Egyptian regime, whose authoritarianism, he
complains, has stifled creativity in an industry that was once the best Egyptian
export in the Arab world.

"The industry's main product is talent, the human being, but the will of the
human being has been sapped by emergency rule, by the lack of transparency, by a
bureaucracy so heavy and totally rotten," he says.

"If artists turn cowards because of the heavy pressure, I think it hurts and
they cannot create."

But the country's famous artist, who has sought to break taboos by tackling
sensitive political subjects and has been attacked by both the regime and its
Islamist opponents, is also frustrated by a more practical and immediate
headache.

A new company with vast financial resources has entered Egypt's film industry in
the past year and expanded so rapidly that it has left smaller production
companies, including the one owned by Mr Chahine, shell-shocked.

"We have a big problem now, a company that comes in and knows nothing," says Mr
Chahine. "We don't want it to dominate the market."

The company is Fonoun, the Arab arts and publishing company. It is the
brainchild of Ahmad Heikal, co-founder of a local investment bank whose imported
aggressive Wall Street tactics have ruffled feathers in a country where
"businessmen" are still viewed with suspicion.

Billed as the Time Warner of the Middle East, and armed with an Dollars 450m
investment capital gathered from Arab investors, Fonoun in the last 12 months
has bought up 30 per cent of screens in Egypt, and theatres elsewhere in the
Arab world as well as a large chunk of old Egyptian films.

In film industry circles, the word is that Fonoun has already offered a hefty
sum for Mr Chahine's company but that he is refusing to sell.

The company's reach is extending to production and it expects to make 12 films
this year. Its ambitions stretch well beyond cinema, and it has already
purchased a good part of the Arab world's top book publishing houses and music
labels.

Salim Farid, a prominent film critic, says Fonoun is exactly what the Egypt's
troubled film industry needs. Production has fallen from a high of 100 films a
year several decades ago to 25 a year recently. "It is helping to revive the
industry," he says. "We always complained that there isn't big capital in
cinema."

But as it seeks to digest one acquisition after another, Fonoun has stirred huge
controversy, with accusations of monopolising the market and complaints over a
lack of transparency.

The Egyptian press has gone on a crusade to tarnish the company's image, raising
alarm over a main backer's shadowy background. Last month, the campaign against
Fonoun gained further momentum as the company's president quit and later hinted
in an interview with Rose al-Youssef, a local magazine, that he had disagreed
with some decisions and that shareholders were interfering in management.

Critics in the business community, meanwhile charge that Fonoun and its
dominance by an investment bank that has no experience in the industry, has been
over-ambitious and should stick to distribution and leave production for others.

The company's strategy rests on expectations that it can tackle the impediments
to both film and music expansion in Egypt. The film industry's demise is blamed
on the limited number of theatres and the closure of Arab markets that were once
a valuable outlet.

Mr Farid says when the main outlets for Egyptian films became satellite and
cable television in the Arab world, stations bought cheap rights to old films
and had little incentive to pay more for new productions.

"Films became so cheap outside and so expensive to produce inside, so production
went down," he explains.

"At the same time, the Algerian market, where there was the highest number of
cinemas, was shut because of war; Libya prohibited the import of Egyptian films;
and Sudan got an Islamist government."

Stung by controversy, Fonoun officials are keeping a low profile but people
close to the company say the focus is on building distribution channels as well
as improving the quality of new films.

The same applies for the music industry, where Fonoun has already signed
money-making deals with supermarkets to distribute its labels; and music
distribution by telephone - whereby Arabs dial a number and request a song.

At the same time, the company is betting on a gradual erosion of piracy as Egypt
is pushed to embrace World Trade Organisation rules on intellectual property
rights.

"We sell 2,500 videos of a film but numbers on the market can reach 20,000,"
says Gaby Khouri, Mr Chahine's partner. "And we're not protected elsewhere in
the Arab world."

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1133 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

May 9, 2001 Wednesday
Surveys EGY1

State re-energised by offshore finds: GAS by Heba Saleh: Large reserves in the
Nile delta throw a lifeline to an economy with a growing appetite for both
energy and overseas earnings

BYLINE: By HEBA SALEH

SECTION: SURVEY - EGYPT ; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 802 words

With three agreements for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) plants and a potential
fourth in the pipeline, Egypt appears poised to become a significant gas
exporter to markets in the Mediterranean and possibly as far as the US.

The agreements rely on supplies from what is described as a "world class gas
province" in the Nile Delta and its offshore waters.

Sameh Fahmy, the Egyptian oil minister puts his country's proven reserves at 51
trillion cubic feet, with another 69 trillion cubic feet of probable reserves.

It may not be in the same league as Qatar or Iran, but Mr Fahmy says Egypt has
enough gas to allow it to export a third of its reserves, use another third to
meet domestic demand for 25 years and save the final third for future
generations.

With declining oil production, and predictions that Egypt would soon become a
net importer of oil, the discovery of natural gas in large quantities is a
lifeline to a state struggling to meet the needs of a fast-expanding population.

"The key story of the Egyptian industry is the transformation from oil to gas,"
says one industry executive. "Total production of hydrocarbons is higher than it
has ever been."

At home, the government is pushing for industry, residential consumers, power
stations and even vehicles to convert to gas.

Both Shell and BG, the international oil and gas groups, are involved in
expanding the local market through distribution joint ventures, which lay down
infrastructure and market gas to areas where it had not been available.

But the domestic market is likely to remain oversupplied in the coming years,
making export the logical next step for big companies working in Egypt.The first
LNG deal was clinched by Union Fenosa, the Spanish utility company. The company
plans to invest Dollars 1.6bn in an LNG plant to export gas to fuel its power
stations in Spain.

Despite regional competition from Algeria, Libya and Qatar, oil executives say
there is a gas deficit in the already-developed markets of Europe and the US,
providing an opportunity for export schemes that promise to come to market in
the next two or three years.

"Egypt has a wonderful opportunity now to capitalise on significant reserves. If
we miss it, the competition will jump in," says Peter Dranfield president of BG
Egypt, which with Edison International, signed an LNG deal in April.

"There are attractive markets in Southern Europe and the US. Once they have been
supplied that opportunity goes away for 20 years."

BG envisiges turning Idku, east of Alexandria, into one of five gas hubs it is
developing around the world. It also aims to turn itself into an integrated
company delivering gas directly to customers.

The Dollars 900m LNG plant will use the significant uncommitted reserves that BG
has in the offshore West Delta Deep Marine concession.

This concession boasts the largest gas finds ever made in Egypt. BG and Edison
are developing the field at a cost of Dollars 600m.

The first LNG sales are expected in 2005.

In March BP, the oil giant, and its Italian partner, ENI, agreed with the
Egyptian General Petroleum Organization, EGPC, the commercial terms for their
LNG venture. Total investment will be at least Dollars 1.5bn.

BP is already an important gas producer in Egypt, but supplies for the LNG plant
will be bought from EGPC.

A company executive says BP is so confident of its ability to market Egyptian
gas that it need not wait until it has fixed every step of the way from upstream
to burn up.

BP and ENI will buy the LNG produced by the facility for sale in Mediterranean
markets from the second half of 2004.

Shell is another big oil company negotiating its own gas venture. It proposes to
combine an LNG train with a Gas-To-Liquids plant at a cost of Dollars 1.8bn. The
company operates exploration and production concessions around Egypt, but its
most adventurous work is being carried out in the vast Northeast Mediterranean
Deep Water Block, Nemed.

With water depths ranging from 800 metres to 2,800 metres and an area of
41,500kms sq Nemed is real frontier exploration.

Shell executives have been bullish about oil and gas prospects there, comparing
it to prolific deltas in the Gulf of Mexico and Nigeria. The company has already
drilled two exploration wells in Nemed but has postponed announcing results,
triggering reports in March that they were disappointing.

The oil minister has denied that Shell has hit dry holes and said that one of
wells proved that the Delta gas play extended into the block 120km off the
Egyptian coast. He said a full analysis is still awaited.

The results of Nemed are important because so far most of the oil and gas found
in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean has been in shallow waters.

If the promise Shell perceives in Nemed is realised, it could open up a new
horizon for the region.

LOAD-DATE: May 8, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 7, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

Ivanov begins Libya visit NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By ROBERT COTTRELL

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA & AMERICAS ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 73 words

DATELINE: MOSCOW

Ivanov begins Libya visit

Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, began a two-day visit to Libya yesterday
expected to include talks with the Libyan leader, Muammer Gadaffi, about a
possible summit with President Vladimir Putin. Russia and Libya have already
agreed in principle on the need for a summit "to open up new horizons for our
co-operation", said Vasiliy Sredin, a Russian Foreign Ministry official. Robert
Cottrell, Moscow

LOAD-DATE: May 6, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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1135 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

May 5, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

Rift grows between Washington and UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION US LOSS OF SEAT
PROMPTS MOVES THAT COULD DERAIL PAYMENT OF ARREARS OWED TO ORGANISATION:

BYLINE: By CAROLA HOYOS and MICHAEL LITTLEJOHNS

SECTION: THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 527 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON and NEW YORK

Members of US Congress yesterday reacted swiftly to the loss of the US seat on
the United Nations Human Rights Commission, calling for hearings that could
derail Washington's payment of Dollars 582m (Pounds 404m) in UN arrears.

Wednesday's vote for members of the 53-nation commission threatens to exacerbate
further the already strained relations between the new Bush administration and
the UN and its members.

Washington risks angering European countries, especially if it reneges on its
promise to repay its UN debts. European countries last December agreed
reluctantly to shoulder more of the burden of funding the UN in return for
Washington paying the Dollars 582m, only a portion of the Dollars 1.7m in
arrears the UN says the US owes the organisation.

Thursday's vote has given hawkish members of Congress, many of whom resent the
UN's existence, some of the most powerful ammunition in years with which to
attack the world organisation, diplomats said.

Reacting to the vote, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican
and chair of the subcommittee on international operations and human rights,
said: "It's a travesty that undermines the integrity and legitimacy of the
United Nations system where we have human rights violators such as Libya, Cuba
and China as semi-permanent members of the Commission," adding: "The US Congress
will study this situation carefully."

The US State Department also voiced dismay, saying: "Our commitment and resolve
to address the human rights problems around the world is a matter of US policy
and it will not be affected by this vote."

But it is the US attitude to human rights that many believe was the reason
Washington lost its seat, which it had held since 1947.

The outcome is being portrayed by many in Washington and the UN as a rebuff to
US toughness on human rights, especially relating to China and Cuba.

Representative Henry Hyde, Republican from Illinois and chairman of the House
International Relations Committee said: "This appears to be a deliberate attempt
to punish the US for its insistence that the commission tell the truth about
human rights abuses wherever they occur. The decision may have the unfortunate
result of turning the Human Rights Commission into just another irrelevant
international organisation."

But a western delegate who follows rights matters closely insisted this was a
misrepresentation. Sweden is tougher, yet was elected, the diplomat noted -
albeit by only three votes more than the 29 the US received.

Delegates mentioned repeated US vetoes on UN Security Council resolutions aimed
at protecting Palestinians under Israel's occupation, and a willingness to look
the other way when a grievous violation occurred in America's own backyard - as
long as it was not Cuba.

The vote was also seen as a backlash to President George W. Bush's general
dismissiveness of the UN and his retreat from the Kyoto protocol and other
multilateral agreements.

Virtually every delegate who volunteered an opinion yesterday hoped the incident
would serve as a wake-up call to the Bush administration to become more engaged
with the world body and with multilateralism in general.

LOAD-DATE: May 8, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 5, 2001 Saturday
Surveys WUS1

Semantics that set evil in motion TELEVISION EUNY HONG-KORAL:

BYLINE: By EUNY HONG-KORAL

SECTION: WEEKEND INVESTOR ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 808 words

More devastating than Claude Lanzmann's Shoah or Elie Wiesel's Night, or any
Holocaust survivor's testimony, is the architecture and legal language of
Hitler's Final Solution itself.

The terms of the solution were hammered out over a buffet lunch at the lakeside
village of Wannsee, near Berlin, on January 20 1942.

The 15 participants left no stone unturned in defining the ins and outs of
Goering's infamous 1941 mandate to his second-in-command, SS General Reinhard
Heydrich (Goering was not present at the Wannsee meeting): "I hereby charge you
with making all necessary preparations with regard to organisational and
financial matters for bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish question
within the German sphere of influence in Europe."

Of the 30 copies made of the transcript, only one copy survived, which was
discovered in the files of the Reich Foreign Office in 1948.

Conspiracy, a new HBO production, is based on a powerful, simple idea. It
recreates the infamous meeting at Wannsee, and is based almost exclusively on
the transcript itself, dramatised in real-time: the film lasts for 90 minutes,
which is approximately the same duration as the meeting on which it is based.

There is no background score, no embellishment. Director Frank Pierson
(screenwriter for Dog Day Afternoonand Cool Hand Luke) explains his strategy to
make the audience feel like a fly on the wall at the meeting: "The camera was
never above or below eye level." (HBO, Saturday May 19 at 9pm ET.)

The men sit around the boardroom table, calligraphic name placards and water
pitchers before them, with a silent stenographer in the background.

They proceed in a laconic, no-nonsense fashion, as though they are management
consultants trying to determine how to lay off employees in the face of an
imminent corporate merger.

General Heydrich (played by Kenneth Branagh) leads the meeting. He explains that
Germany is facing the one drawback of world conquest: it continually increases
its Jewish population as it annexes neighbouring lands. "Germany acquired 2.5m
Jews when we conquered Poland, and we will get 5m more when we take Russia," he
says.

Emigration of the Jews is not a solution, because: "Who will take them? Even in
the US, as Jews are whispering in Roosevelt's ear, they turn them away."

Then, with studied rhetoric, he announces: "From Lapland to Libya, from
Vladivostok to Belfast, no Jews. Not one." It elicits an approving
table-thumping.

The next item on the agenda is an incredibly baroque discussion, meant to
clarify the sections of the Nuremberg laws that defined, in legal terms, who was
to be considered a Jew.

The Wannsee participatants agree readily enough that the "first-degree mixed"
Jews - those possessing "two or more Jewish grandparents" - must be sterilised.
Will they consent to this?

SS OberfuhrerGerhard Klopfer (played by Ian McNiece), state secretary of the
party chancellery, says:

"Why not, they've already had their cocks clipped."

The real debate is over the definition of a "second-degree mixed Jew". Heydrich
proposes that a Jew can be excepted, unless "he is Jewish-looking or sounding".

Confusion arises. One participant furrows his brow: "Are we talking about
third-degree Jews?" Heydrich attempts to elucidate, which further underscores
the absurdity of the debate: "A mixed second, third exception."

The performers convey their inner state through the subtlest of gestures. The
astonishingly versatile Colin Firth plays Dr Wilhelm Stuckart, the jurist who
co-wrote the Nuremberg laws. As the SS representatives mangle the letter of the
law he wrote, he simmers steadily, attempting vainly to interrupt, until at last
he explodes.

The ostensible topic is the Jewish question, but it becomes clear that Heydrich
has pulled off a sleight of hand. Any semblance of a democratic exchange of
ideas has been a farce. This is a power struggle, in which the SS subversively
takes control through word play and intrigue - not by screaming and banging
their shoes on the table.

These are not the caricatured, comically stentorian Nazis of a Steven Spielberg
film. On the contrary, as the actors interpret it, this meeting is a game of
steel nerves.

All the participants attempt to hide their discomfort when discussing the
efficacy of gas chambers. Heydrich mentions amusedly that one of the effects of
the carbon monoxide gas is that the bodies turn pink. At this point, General
Otto Hofmann, chief of the race and settlement, excuses himself from the table,
mumbling: "Shouldn't have mixed wine with whisky."

One participant quotes Goethe in an attempt to get his cohorts into the proper,
iron-fisted spirit of things: "Theory is grey, whereas action is green." This
programme demonstrates that quite the reverse is true: theory is a form of
action, and mere semantics are sufficient to set evil in motion.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 5, 2001 Saturday
USA Edition 1

Desert explorer died in Trieste

BYLINE: By JOSEPH DIAMANTE

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 68 words

From Mr Joseph Diamante.

Sir, In an article excerpted from his book, Justin Marozzi writes that "Sir
Richard Burton's expedition (in the desert) resulted in his excruciating death
from bilious fever in the central oasis of Murzuk in what is today Libya" ("A
desert odyssey", FT Weekend April 28-29).

Sir Richard died in Trieste in October 1890.

Joseph Diamante, 55 West 55th Street, New York, NY 10019, US

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 1, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: US confronts the need to rewrite outmoded rules on
weapons exports: Cold war-era curbs in a now global defence sector are
counter-productive on both sides of the Atlantic, writes Edward Alden:

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 840 words

For more than six months in 1999, a Swiss defence contractor beseeched the US
government to authorise the sale of componentsfor the Swiss army's M-113
armoured personnel carriers.

The fight was not over the release of the latest US military hardware or
advanced computer software. The Swiss company, instead, was asking for such
items as radiator hoses and water pumps for the commercial US diesel engines
that power the M-113s.

Under US law, however, any item redesigned for military use - however innocuous
- is considered a weapons component. The water pumps and the hoses for the M-113
are slightly modified from those used in the commercial engine; as a result, the
US maker required a State Department licence before they could be exported.

Such absurd tales are part of a growing litany that is driving pressure in the
US for the first big overhaul of its military export controls since the height
of the cold war.

In a report to be released today, the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), an influential Washington think-tank headed by former deputy
defence secretary, John Hamre, concludes that the current US export control
system "expends enormous resources on trivial and unimportant security risks"
and in the process has driven a wedge between the US and it European allies.

A similar study chaired by several influential lawmakers including House
Republican policy committee chairman, Christopher Cox, said last week that US
export controls were increasingly at odds with rapid technological innovation
and the globalisation of the defence industrial base.

However, while pressure for change is growing - not the least from US defence
companies who fear losing business in Europe - the reform proposals are likely
to expose serious disagreements between the US and its allies over which weapons
should be controlled and to which countries.

The US military export control system, designed during the cold war, still
reflects a time when the US had a near monopoly over advanced weapons
technology, and US defence suppliers worked almost exclusively for the Pentagon.

Those realities allowed the US to craft a rigid system designed to keep any US
military goods out of the hands of potential adversaries. For instance, the US
prohibits the re-export of any military item that includes any US component
without the explicit approval by the State Department.

A second feature is the so-called "deemed export". Under US law, any access by a
foreign national or dual-citizen to classified weapons information is deemed to
be equivalent to an export to that country. Thus a European company that employs
nationals from France, Sweden and Germany would require multiple export licences
to work on classified US projects.

"This law was written 25 years ago when a British workforce was a British
workforce and French workforce was a French workforce. But that's not true any
more," says Joel Johnson of the US Aerospace Industries Association.

One result has been that export licences for sharing US technical defence data
have increased more than four-fold since 1995, even as the security threats to
the US have diminished.

These anachronisms in US law have produced growing tension between the US and
its European allies, and between defence companies on both sides of the water.

US export control curbs have also discouraged trans-atlantic mergers among
defence companies, and have made it more difficult to ensure that US and
European weapons systems will be compatible in wartime.

The emerging consensus in Washington is that the best way to fix these problems
is through closer co-operation with European defence partners.

The congressional study recommends a new regime in which the US and a handful of
key allies would harmonise their export control policies and identify common
security concerns in exchange for freer defence trade within the group.

That would allow US and European defence companies to integrate their operations
more closely, improving efficiencies and driving down government costs for new
weapons systems. However, the obstacles are enormous.

The UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain and Italy already allow such free sharing
of defence technology. But the agreement stipulates that the country of final
assembly can decide where the weapons are sold, and the component suppliers
cannot object.

Such a deal is unlikely with the US. It would pose no problem with buyers such
as Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea, where the US and Europe agree on denying
them weaponry. But there are serious disagreements with Europe over countries
such as India and China.

Already hardline US lawmakers are resisting any easing of US export controls.
Any proposal to liberalise defence trade with Europe is likely to be accompanied
by US demands that Europe tighten controls on China.

The CSIS report acknowledges that reforming US export controls is a daunting
task. But the alternative, it says, is growing isolation between the US and
European defence establishments, with high costs for both sides.

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May 1, 2001 Tuesday
USA Edition 1

US AND CANADA: Terrorists shift targets from Europe to US INTERNATIONAL ATTACKS
SHARP RISE IN ANTI-US INCIDENTS LAST YEAR WITH DEATHS ALMOST DOUBLED, SAYS
ANNUAL REPORT:

BYLINE: By CAROLA HOYOS

SECTION: US AND CANADA ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 464 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

Terrorists are shifting their targets from western Europe to the US, the US
State Department said yesterday in its annual terrorism report.

Overall, international terrorist attacks increased 8 per cent from the previous
year to 423 in 2000. The number of anti-US attacks rose to 200 in 2000, compared
to 169 in 1999, while attacks in western Europe decreased to 30 from 85, largely
due to fewer incidents in Germany, Greece and Italy and no attacks in Turkey.

The US also suffered a sharp increase in casualties last year, with terrorist
attacks causing 405 deaths, nearly double the amount in 1999.

The most prominent attack against the US occurred last October when 19 people
were killed in an explosion aboard the USS Cole, which was docking in the Yemeni
port of Aden. Africa has also witnessed an increase in terrorist attacks in
2000, confirming a trend that began in 1995. Most of those attacks, however,
stemmed from internal civil unrest, the report said.

Regional centres of terrorism also continued to shift, the report noted: "In
2000, South Asia remained a focal point for terrorism directed against the US,
further confirming the trend of terrorism shifting from the Middle East to South
Asia."

In addition, it observed, state-sponsored terrorism has continued to decline - a
trend which Edmund Hull, acting co-ordinator for counterterrorism, attributed to
the international community's commitment to halting terrorism.

Still, the US was spared international terrorist attacks on its own soil last
year. Most attacks targeting the US came from two guerrilla groups in Colombia,
which bombed the multilateral oil pipeline in that country 152 times in 2000.

Still, the State Department's list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism
remained unchanged from the previous year. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North
Korea and Sudan continue to be subject to US sanctions for their activities.
Iran remained the most active sponsor of terrorism, the department said.

Meanwhile, Washington continued discussions in 2000 aimed at removing North
Korea and Sudan from the group. While the trial of those Libyans accused of
bombing Pan Am flight 103 concluded in January 2001, Libya has yet to fulfil the
UN's requirements of responsibility, including paying compensation and
renouncing terrorism.

"The United States remains dedicated to maintaining pressure in the Libyan
government until it does so," the report states.

The US increased its pressure on Afghanistan's Taliban last year, sponsoring a
UN resolution that tightened sanctions on the movement. Nevertheless, it remains
a primary hub for terrorists, in particular Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born
millionaire and head of al-Quaida, a network of Islamic extremists.
www.state.gov/www/global/ terrorism/index.html

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 30, 2001 Monday
Surveys ENE1

SURVEY - ENERGY & UTILITY REVIEW: US edges closer to new energy policy: The
recent power crisis in California has raised American awareness of the situation
and the Bush administration seems to be more committed to the problem, writes
David Buchan

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: SURVEY - ENERGY & UTILITY REVIEW ; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 1600 words

The US is striving towards some kind of energy policy. When it eventually gets
one, the impact on the rest of the world will be considerable.

The long-term health of the world's biggest economy, depends on resolution of
its domestic energy problems. It also has an impact on the market and climate
generally as the world's biggest importer of oil and emitter of greenhouse
gases.

The US is also home to the world's largest private energy sector, but also has a
government prone to use energy as a weapon of foreign policy. Through sanctions,
Washington has kept its own companies out of certain oil-producing countries and
tried to keep others out too.

The only absolutely clear thing about the Bush administration's national energy
policy is that it wants one. That itself is a change. Like governments in other
industrialised countries, Washington has steadily retreated from the energy
sector.

It has moved from tight administration (fixing natural gas prices, for example)
to loose regulation (shared, in electricity, with states and local governments).

The US has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, created after the 1970s oil shocks,
and actually used it last year. In extremis, the US is also willing to go to war
for oil, as it showed in the Gulf conflict 10 years ago.

But the general sentiment was that the marketplace would provide a solution, and
that energy problems, like bad weather and economic cycles to which they are
related, could be relied on to fade away.

This complacency has been blown away by the California power crisis, last year's
run-up in world oil prices (partly due to US gasoline and heating oil shortages)
and the arrival in the White House of a president and vice-president with a
background in Texan oil.

The Texas-based oil and gas industry tends to see the crisis as primarily one of
supply. In the past 20 years, according to the American Petroleum Institute, US
oil output has fallen from 8.57m barrels a day to 5.84m b/d.

This is despite the fact that companies now drill deeper (to an average of 6,105
feet, compared to 4,512 feet in 1981), cheaper (average well cost of Dollars
769,000, compared with Dollars 855,000 in real terms in 1981) and better (a 80.3
per cent success ratio, compared with 69.6 per cent in 1981).

During the same period, imports, both crude and refined product, have risen from
6m b/d to just over 11m b/d.

Natural gas output has not fallen off to the same degree. But nor, in a sense,
can it. Environmental factors have driven up demand for gas faster than for oil.
Unlike oil, it cannot be imported by sea, except in the liquefied form that
still accounts for only 1 per cent of US gas consumption.

After the 1998-99 trough in activity, companies, spurred on by higher gas
prices, are now pressing every available rig into service for drilling in the US
and Canada. But they are having to run hard just to stay in place.

Mark Pappa, Houston-based chief executive of EOG, formerly Enron Oil and Gas and
now one of the most active drillers in North America, explains why. "We are now
getting gas out of the ground faster than we can find it, because technology in
accelerated extraction is advancing faster than in seismology," he says.

As a result, the rate at which production declines as a share of the base is
rising - from an average annual decline rate of 16 per cent in 1990 to 23 per
cent in 1999. "In the Gulf of Mexico, decline rates can go up to 40 per cent a
year," says Mr Pappa.

So the industry is eyeing federal land. The federal government owns one-third of
US land, but where, 20 years ago, 75 per cent of this was available for drilling
leases, now only 17 per cent is.

The industry hopes, with reason, that the Bush administration will reverse this
trend. However, this will not be easy.

The administration's plan to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
(ANWR) to drilling has stirred strong opposition. There are obstacles elsewhere,
too.

While the federal government owns and could, in theory, lease the entire outer
continental shelf for drilling, in practice California blocks exploitation of
the Pacific, while Florida, even under Governor Jeb Bush, the president's
brother, insists on keeping the drillers away from both its coasts.

Companies would also like to make fuller use of what leases they have, says John
Seitz, president of Anadarko. His company, currently North America's most active
driller on 21m acres, is doubling operations in the Rockies, but often has to
dismantle rigs temporarily during the wildlife breeding and tourist seasons.

If access to resources is a problem, so is the infrastructure to get it to
market.

A new report, produced jointly by the Baker Institute in Houston and the Council
on Foreign Relations in New York, points out how deregulation was initially
smoothed by "surplus capacities along the entire energy chain, accumulated in
the days of government-subsidised industry and falling demand".

The excess capacity existed in refineries, tankers, pipelines, rigs, and, of
course, in power generation. It allowed "expansion of energy use without
significantly affecting underlying costs," says the report.

The surplus capacity has largely vanished under the impact of deregulation, the
accompanying price volatility that has made new investment risky and quite
separate pressures from environmental regulation.

Take oil refineries. Twenty years ago, the US had 315 of them with a combined
capacity of 18.6m b/d and overall utilisation of 68.6 per cent. Last year, the
country had 155 refineries with a 16.5m

b/d capacity that was 92.6 per cent used.

It is the same story with the nuclear reactors that provide 20 per cent of US
electricity. Not a single new nuclear plant permit has been issued since 1979,
the year of the Three Mile Island accident.

But re-regulation is to blame for another handicap: the proliferation of
regional gasoline standards, complicating refining and logistic problems and
frequently causing local shortages and prices spikes.

A single standard was never going to suffice in so large a country with, for
instance, mile-high Denver requiring a less volatile fuel than low-lying
Houston.

But states and cities have increasingly used the 1990 Clean Air Act and the
replacement of lead in fuel to demand that the oil companies provide them with
differing cocktails of gasoline and diesel to suit their environmental needs.
The upshot is that the oil companies are now asked to provide more than 100
different fuels.

California, the north-east and the upper mid-west require gasoline reformulated
to be more oxygenated and less smelly; Atlanta demands a lower sulphur and less
evaporative fuel than the rest of Georgia; and garages in the two halves of the
city of St Louis (because they are in two different states) have to sell
different types of gasoline.

The standards are unenforceable in the sense that drivers cannot be confined to
a certain zone simply by virtue of what they carry in their tank. But this has
not lessened local authorities' enthusiasm for them.

In this area, as in that of electricity infrastructure, it is hard to see what
the Bush administration can do to prevent such balkanisation without riding
rough-shod over states' rights.

Equally difficult, but even more pressing is to forge a single electricity
transmission network to carry the huge amounts of power that are being traded
across the country by commodity energy brokers, such as Enron and Dynegy. The
federal authorities have slender means at their disposal.

While it has sole authority over the natural gas trade and network, the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) has to share supervision of electricity
trade with states which themselves have sole power to rule on the siting of
power plants and lines.

Deregulation has made the latter task harder. In the days of local monopolies,
people knew that at least a power plant - however ugly - in their backyard would
be serving their needs. But in today's world of competitive long-distance power
trading, the plant could be lighting, cooling or heating the other end of the
country.

Nonetheless, Ferc realises it has to be more of a bully to preach the right
model for US power, even if that means treading on state sensibilities. "We were
overly deferential to California's rules and market design," says one Ferc
official.

US companies hope President Bush will give them a freer run at foreign as well
as domestic oil. The US has trade and investment bans on eight countries - of
which Iraq, Iran and Libya are Opec members, and a fourth, Sudan, a growing oil
producer. The upshot, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, may be
to reduce the production capacity of the three sanctioned Opec producers by
1.5-2m b/d.

That, in turn, makes the world market tighter than it would otherwise have been,
to the obvious detriment of such a big oil importer as the US.

US companies clearly fret more at the unilateral sanctions on Iran and Libya
than the multilateral United Nations embargo on Iraq, which also restricts their
competitors.

It may also be time for the US to recognise not only how outdated the notion of
energy independence at home is, but also the wisdom of cloaking its foreign
energy policy in a more multilateral guise.

The Baker Institute-Council on Foreign Relations report suggests ways this might
be done.

The US could take a less confrontational line towards Opec on prices, set Russia
an example by signing the European energy charter treaty that governs energy
trade and transit, and adopt a hemispheric approach to energy relations with
Canada and Mexico.

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 27, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

THE AMERICAS: Bush seeks more presidential control over sanctions

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: THE AMERICAS ; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 304 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

Those issues will lead the agenda in an internal review of sanctions policy
announced by Colin Powell, secretary of state. The review, to be launched
shortly, has been delayed because the Bush team is still trying to fill many of
the key administration posts.

Mr Powell has already initiated a review of US sanctions on Iraq, arguing that
the decade-long United Nations-led embargo has failed to weaken the regime of
Saddam Hussein.

The administration must also decide whether to support renewal of the Iran-Libya
Sanctions Act (ILSA), which allows for US sanctions against foreign companies
doing business in those two countries. The law, which has angered many European
countries, expires in August and US oil companies are pressing for the lifting
of sanctions.

But the official said the administration wants broader reform of sanctions
policy, not simply specific decisions on particular sanctions regimes.

The administration will consider supporting legislation introduced previously by
Senator Richard Lugar, which would sharply curb the use of unilateral sanctions.
While that proposal has drawn strong support from US business and farmers that
are harmed by economic sanctions, many Republicans favour their more robust use.

Presidential discretion would be a key theme of the review. Previous
administrations have also urged expanded presidential flexibility, but Congress
has resisted such demands. However, the official said congressional opinion had
shifted since 1998, when the Clinton administration was forced by law to impose
sanctions on India and Pakistan following their nuclear bomb tests. He said
while subsequent sanctions legislation has included greater presidential
flexibility, "it would be useful and appropriate to establish this more firmly
as a principle." For regional reports, www.ft.com/usa

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 27, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: A vacancy at a very British institution: Whoever succeeds
Sir Christopher Bland as BBC chairman will occupy a job unlike any in the
commercial world, wr:

BYLINE: By MICHAEL SKAPINKER

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 1023 words

There is no executive position in the world quite like the chairmanship of the
British Broadcasting Corporation.

There are company heads with enormous reach and power, and there are many who
earn far more than the Pounds 82,000 (Dollars 118,080) paid to Sir Christopher
Bland last year. But there are no company articles of association that start
with the words: "Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and Territories
Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith: to all to whom these
presents shall come, greeting!"

So begins the Royal Charter of the BBC, under which it operates, and it gives a
hint of the dilemmas that will confront whoever is selected to replace Sir
Christopher, who announced yesterday that he is becoming chairman of British
Telecommunications, and will leave the BBC when a successor is appointed.

The BBC is a national broadcaster. While great institutions such as British
Airways and British Rail have been sold or broken up, the BBC still belongs to
the nation, which funds it through a tax on the ownership of television sets.

For generations of Britons, the BBC represented everything that was best about
their country: fair, objective and authoritative. For millions outside the UK,
it still does. It is not only Britain's most highly regarded institution - it is
also the most respected name in international broadcasting. In many countries,
the BBC World Service remains an indispensable voice of truth, to be relied on
during times of political upheaval.

At home, however, the BBC has been under attack for years, from sections of the
press and from politicians, over the objectivity of its coverage, as during the
Falklands war and the US bombing of Libya, and over what some see as its fading
commitment to factual and serious programmes.

More recently, private sector broadcasters have accused the BBC of using public
money to compete unfairly against them. They have objected to the BBC setting up
a 24-hour news channel, and other digital channels. For the new chairman, these
pressures will become more acute as new channels and forms of communication
develop.

He or she will also have to be politically acceptable. The tradition at the BBC
is that the chairman and vice-chairman are from different political parties. Sir
Christopher is seen as a Conservative. His deputy, Gavyn Davies, is close to
Labour.

Mr Davies, who was appointed to the BBC post at the end of last year, is a
front-runner to become chairman. The government could then appoint a Tory as
vice-chairman. But broadcasting experts believe that could create trouble,
because Greg Dyke, the BBC's director-general, is also a government favourite
and had made donations to Labour. Having two strong Labour figures at the helm
would provoke strong protests from the opposition.

Ian Hargreaves, professor of journalism at Cardiff University and a former head
of BBC news and current affairs, says the government had probably hoped it would
not have to make a decision so soon. "Gavyn Davies was definitely put in there
with a view to becoming chairman after Bland. But the surprise departure of
Bland creates some difficulty. The Tories could feel very severely and justly
aggrieved if Davies becomes chairman," he says.

Two other names being mentioned as candidates for chairman - Gerry Robinson,
head of the Arts Council and former chairman of Granada, and Lord Stevenson,
chairman of Pearson, which owns the FT - would not solve the problem, as both
are associated with Labour.

Past BBC chairmen have proved willing to stand up to the governments that
appointed them. Marmaduke Hussey, Sir Christopher's predecessor, was appointed
chairman by the Thatcher government with an instruction, according to Norman
Tebbit, a leading Conservative minister, to "sort the place out".

Lord Hussey did appoint John Birt, who effected radical change as
director-general, but he also protested furiously when police raided the BBC in
Glasgow in 1997 and seized material related to a programme about a government
spy satellite.

Nevertheless, it is the appearance of political bias that will exercise the
Conservatives and its allies in the press if the new leadership of the BBC is
seen as too strongly aligned with the government.

Whoever takes the chairman's job will inherit a corporate structure unlike any
in the commercial world. The task of ensuring the BBC remains true to its remit,
and of appointing and dismissing the director-general, lies with the governors,
including the chairman and vice-chairman. Their powers are similar to those of a
board of directors. But they are appointed by the government to represent
various interests, so that there are governors to watch out for England,
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and ethnic minorities.

The result is that few are known to a wider public. It is unlikely many people
in the UK could name even one BBC governor, let alone all 12. They have little
impact on those working at the BBC. "In my 15 years there, I only ever met one
governor, and that was for 10 minutes, in 1983, in the company of 20 other
people," says a former BBC executive. "They are more like school governors."

There is another BBC oddity: not only are the governors responsible for
appointing the director-general and setting strategy. They are also responsible
for regulating the BBC, deciding what broadcasting and media areas it can enter.

The government plans partly to exempt the BBC from control by Ofcom, its
proposed communications watchdog, although commercial broadcasters will be
subject to its supervision. A House of Commons select committee this year
described this as "absurd".

Some of the pressures the BBC faced during the Thatcher years have disappeared.
Labour ministers, unlike their Tory predecessors, are not hostile to the very
idea of a state-owned broadcaster.

But the anomaly of an organisation using public funds to compete in a market
where viewers can increasingly choose what they want will not disappear. The
post of BBC chairman might be hugely prestigious, but it is no sinecure.

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 21, 2001 Saturday
London Edition 1

FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT: A desert odyssey Ever since his father had taken him on
a visit to Libya, Justin Marozzi dreamed of returning one day to cross the
Sahara by camel. Then the chance came

BYLINE: By JUSTIN MAROZZI

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1830 words

I stood on the crest of the dune, a giant curve of caramel blancmange rising
smoothly from the plain, and stared into the dry desert wind. To the south, as
far as the eye could see, was the vast, burning wilderness of the Awbari Sand
Sea. Its outermost fringes were lined with outcrops of rock looming out of the
sand.

Farther in, the rocks petered out until all that was left were the massed ranks
of dunes, a rolling infinity of soft burnished slopes and shapes hurrying into
the sun-dazzled horizon. To the north, several hundred feet below the summit on
which I stood, my travelling companion Ned and our Touareg guide Abdal Wahab
walked alongside our caravan of five camels.

From this height they were tiny figures, framed beneath a neat sandstone ridge
that ran for miles like a smudged crayon dashed across the sky. Idri, the next
oasis where we would feed and water the camels and stock up on provisions, was
150 miles away. Kufra, the far-flung oasis that was our final goal, was too
distant even to start thinking about. It lay more than 1,000 miles to the
south-east.

Ever since my father introduced me to Tripoli in my early 20s, I had longed to
return to Libya. Then, I had picked up and raced through the account of the
ill-fated British North African expedition of 1818-20 led by Joseph Ritchie and
dreamed of returning one day to cross the Sahara by camel, retracing the old
slave routes that ran through it. Now, six years later, I was here.

We had been travelling for a week from Ghadames, the ancient oasis town that had
once been one of the principal centres of the Saharan slave trade. The past
seven days had been an uncomfortable shock to the system. Long, hot days walking
alongside the camels, desperate to ride but too proud to suggest so to the
tireless Abdal Wahab, a middle-aged, mild-mannered man who seemed perfectly
content to remain on foot. Exhausted after these hungry hours trudging 20-25
miles across monotonous, flint-strewn plains, we flopped to the ground when our
guide deemed it time to halt in the evening.

There was never a moment for idle rest. On striking camp, we had to attend
immediately to the camels, hobbling them with ropes around the ankles to prevent
them from wandering too far, while allowing them to graze on patches of scrub.
Only after they had been brought back to camp in pitch darkness and had had an
extra hobble tied around one of their knees to stop them escaping - a
time-consuming process - could we turn to our own frugal dinner of tuna fish
pasta (which, over the course of the next two months, we would come to know and
hate), eaten shivering around a meagre camp fire.

Nights were freezing. By the time we woke in the half-light of dawn to the soft
cadences of Abdal Wahab saying his prayers, one of the most evocative aspects of
Islam and among the memorable moments of the expedition, our sleeping bags were
covered with frost.

Such hardships the desert presented were as nothing to the thrill of being in
such a remote and primevally beautiful landscape, unlike anything else we had
ever seen. Whether it was the empty, rocky plains, the grey-splashed, larva
fields, or the stubborn, endless sand seas, the loneliness of the Sahara was
compelling. Life in the desert with our own caravan of five handsome camels
trudging wearily beneath wide African skies had its own intoxicating rhythm.

The desert casts a powerful spell on all those who enter it. It always has.
"Your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory recovers its tone,
and your spirits become exuberant," wrote the Victorian explorer and orientalist
Sir Richard Burton of life in the desert.

"Your fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused, and the wildness and
sublimity of the scenes around you stir up all the energies of your soul whether
for exertion, danger or strife all feel their hearts dilate, and their pulses
beat strong, as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious Desert.
Where do we hear of a traveller being disappointed by it?"

Sir Richard's expedition resulted in his excruciating death from bilious fever
in the central oasis of Murzuk in what is today Libya. Though our journey led to
no fatalities, our caravan had its own adventures. In Murzuk we watched,
horrified, as Gobber, one of the largest camels, fell into a narrow trench and
lay upside down, tread-milling the air frantically as the mud walls collapsed on
top of him.

Salek, the Touareg guide who had succeeded Abdal Wahab in Idri, warned us the
camel had only moments to live. Only with the help of a dozen Nigerians, and
after huge difficulty securing a rope beneath him, did we finally manage to
bring Gobber to his feet, bloodied but defiant.

In the tiny oasis of Tmissah, east of Murzuk, we were joined unexpectedly by a
mongrel bitch. In time we christened her Tuna, after the breakfasts she devoured
from our left-over pasta. Trotting along next to us in the shade cast by the
camels, she travelled 400 miles across some of the bleakest, most inhospitable
and waterless terrain in the desert. In Tizirbu, she left us as abruptly as she
had joined our caravan.

In the latter stages of our journey we reached Buzeima, one of the most isolated
oases in the Libyan Sahara. It was a wild place with a shining lake of brackish
water guarded by mountains that rose out of the desert plain like shattered
cathedrals of rich purple rock, streaked black with iron and manganese. In 1921,
it had mesmerised the fearless English traveller Rosita Forbes. "Buzeima is the
loveliest oasis I have ever seen, with its strange ruddy hills - jewels purple
and crimson reflected in the silver salt mirage which girdles the bluest lake in
the world," she wrote.

By this point in our journey, after more than two months and 1,000 miles
travelling from Ghadames, the camels were at their lowest ebb. Asfar, my
favourite mount, an effeminate, honey-coloured animal with long eyelashes and
tufty ears, looked as though the fight was going out of him. He moved
unsteadily, his hooves bashing into his forelegs and drawing blood. Then he
began falling down repeatedly.

Mohammed Othman, our Tubbu guide for the last and most demanding stretch of the
expedition, thought he might not survive until Kufra. In the end, he and his
four colleagues limped into the town, far thinner versions of the camels we had
bought in Ghadames, and we had completed the 1,500-mile journey without loss of
life.

Like so many other places we had passed through - from the magnificent Roman
cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha on the Mediterranean coast, to Tripoli and
the inland oases of Ghadames, Idri, Genna, Murzuk, Zuweila, Wau an Namus,
Tizirbu and Buzeima, Kufra was resonant with history.

"For a desert enthusiast like myself the first sight of Kufra was a
never-to-be-forgotten event," remembered William Kennedy Shaw in his history of
the Long Range Desert Group and its daring exploits in Italian-held Libya during
the second world war. "For Kufra, till the Italians took it, was a story-book
oasis, unattainable, remote, mysterious, the last goal of all African
explorers."

We had no chance to explore this forgotten outpost, which had once been home to
the ascetic Sanusi confraternity and, for long, a leading centre of the desert
slave trade. No sooner had we arrived than we were rounded up and interrogated
by a curt police officer beneath a portrait of a smiling Gaddafi.

Unimpressed by our lack of documentation and that of our newly employed Sudanese
guide, the senior officer arrested him and put us under hotel arrest. We were
under investigation on suspicion of spying, he told us, adding that Libya was no
longer scared of Britain, whose days of imperial glory were long gone. It was a
tense time enlivened by the occasional James Bond film, shisha pipe and sweet
tea in a local cafe, and the periodic arrival of a Libyan army officer trying to
sell us hashish.

After a week of farcical surveillance we were allowed to leave. Our journey had
ended.

Sir Wilfred Thesiger, the last great explorer of the 20th century, always
insisted it was the people, rather than the places, that stimulated his desire
to travel. We had been immensely fortunate with the Libyans we had met and
travelled with.

In Ghadames, the selfless Mohammed Ali had been of huge assistance while we were
preparing for our departure, not least in helping us find five camels suitable
for a long Saharan trek. Abdal Wahab, who possessed the silent gravitas of the
desert Touareg, was a generous and courteous teacher.

Perhaps the most remarkable figure of our travels was Mohammed Othman, who
accompanied us for more than 500 miles from Tmissah to Kufra. At 76, he was our
oldest and most inspirational guide. Far outstripping the distances we covered
with his predecessors, we walked and rode up to 35 miles a day with him. He
walked with a marvellous, swinging ease and never broke into a sweat.

Brought up on camels' milk and dates, with the occasional meal of venison if he
or his father had been successful hunting, he attributed his robust health to
his simple diet. His ancestors were the "troglodyte Ethiopians" referred to by
Herodotus (who visited Libya in about 450BC), "who of all the nations whereof
any account has reached our ears are by far the swiftest of foot".

Sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Sudan in Kufra, reflecting on the journey we
had completed, I felt flatness rather than elation. After the all-pervasive
stillness and solitude of the desert, the return to civilisation was a wrenching
affair. Already I missed the nights beneath the chilly constellations, the wind
fizzing across the dunes, the soft pad-padding of the camels and the
companionship of man and beast.

The Egyptian explorer and diplomat Ahmed Hassanein Bey, who in 1923 travelled
2,200 miles by camel and discovered the "lost" oases of Jebel Arkenu arid Jebel
Ouenat, south-east of Kufra, experienced similar misgivings on completing his
expedition.

"I realised with a stab of regret that this was my last day in the real desert,"
he wrote. "I thought how I should miss my men and my camels, the desolateness
and the beauty, the solitude and the companionship - in two words, the desert
and its life. I thanked God for his guidance across this vast expanse of
pathless sand, and found myself adding a prayer, half wistfully, that I might
come back to it again."

Thesiger, who was never known for his sentimentalism, felt an emptiness on
departing from Arabia for the last time. "I knew that I had made my last journey
in the Empty Quarter and that a phase in my life was ended," he wrote in Arabian
Sands. "Here in the desert I had found all that I asked; I knew that I should
never find it again." Our journey had been modest by comparison. It had been
neither as dramatic nor as long as his own pioneering travels. But I knew
exactly what he meant.

South from Barbary by Justin Marozzi is published by HarperCollins on May 8 at
Pounds 17.99.

More at http://timeoff.ft.com/weekend

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April 9, 2001 Monday
Surveys MEB1

SURVEY - MIDDLE EASTERN BANKING: Cards begin to win appeal: RETAIL BANKING by
James Drummond in Cairo: Progress so far is largely confined to the more
prosperous countries of the region and is well below that in th

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: SURVEY - MIDDLE EASTERN BANKING ; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 886 words

DATELINE: CAIRO:

In a region where it is still common to carry huge wads of notes to pay for big
purchases such as cars, cheques are widely viewed as worthless. But there is
hope. Credit cards, if not yet direct debit and standing orders, are catching on
in the Arab world. And so are the opportunities they give local banks to
diversify their sources of earnings.

Retail banking in the Middle East is in many ways quite sophisticated and agile
compared with other sectors of the economy. In a region where government is
still the main employer, most Arab states have left their banking systems alone.

Only in Syria, Egypt, Libya and Algeria, and to a much lesser extent Qatar and
the UAE, are banking systems still dominated by the state.

The result is that institutions in Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon and the Gulf, all of
which have largely privatised banking systems, have proved resilient in volatile
political environments and surprisingly innovative when it comes to new
technology.

Levels of credit and debit card usage and installation of associated
technologies reflect that willingness to innovate.

Visa, the association that manages the largest payments system in the Middle
East, had issued 5.44m credit and debit cards in the Arab world at the end of
December 2000, 4m of them in the Gulf. Total expenditure through the cards was
Dollars 26.0bn, an annual growth of 58 per cent.

Last year, Oman had the highest growth in card expenditure worldwide at 132 per
cent, Visa says. Qatar grew 52 per cent, while Saudi Arabia, a more mature
market, saw card expenditure increase by 35 per cent. Cards are increasingly
accepted not just by hotels and airlines but in shops, analysts say.

"Merchants are increasingly willing to take machines and to pay (commission) of
around 2 per cent. They realise there is a cost saving in that they don't have
to go to the bank at the end of every day," says Mark Johnson at Evresis, a
Cyprus-based consultancy.

While growth is high, there is still some way to go before card usage hits the
levels seen in the developed world. Cards account for 28 per cent of all
expenditure in Europe but only 3 per cent in the Gulf. Moreover, 75 per cent of
all card transactions in the Middle East are cash withdrawals from machines.

Visa is using debit card technology to promote the use of cards in the Middle
East. Michael Zoghby, Visa's vice-president for the Levant and West Africa,
argues that the installation of debit technology contributes to the development
of complete banking systems. He cites the example of Egypt, where there are only
9m bank accounts for a population of 66m.

"Not all the employed people (in Egypt) have a bank account. Until you expand
the banks' population you can't grow the banks - you can't grow the banks'
intermediation in the economy. You could say that . . . debit cards are
absolutely fundamental and much more profitable because credit cards can only be
given to a very small section of the population. If you get your debit cards
sorted then you can really start to grow the bank," Mr Zoghby says.

But Mr Johnson, of Evresis, says local banks are missing an opportunity to
develop their credit card business and enhance earnings. Favouring debit over
credit cards denies them the opportunity to earn interest on outstanding
balances. Rates of interest can go as high as 25 per cent on an annualised
basis.

"The problem is that banks do not wish to take the cards downmarket. They and
the regulatory authorities are very afraid of any bad debts. In Oman and Qatar,
for example, the central banks look with disfavour on any outstanding balances,"
says Mr Johnson.

The conservatism of the regulatory authorities and the institutions is not
helped by the fact that some of the largest credit card defaulters are members
of the royal families of the Arab world.

Elsewhere, in the poorer countries of the Arab world, the picture is mixed.
Libya and Sudan do not offer credit card facilities, and in Syria the
state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria has only recently announced that it is
looking to issue cards.

Mastercard, Visa's big competitor, has not yet targetted the Arab countries of
the Mediterranean rim, preferring to concentrate on the more prosperous Gulf.

The provision of ATMs mirrors the penetration of credit cards. The main appeal
of ATMs for bankers is that by allowing customers efficient access to their
accounts 24-hours a day they can attract deposits from customers disgruntled at
having to spend time in long queues at unautomated branches.

In the Gulf, the levels of installation are approaching those of Europe,
according to NCR, the ATM supplier which has about 75 per cent of the Middle
Eastern market.

Adonis Papaconstantinou, the head of NCR in the Middle East, says that while
profit growth through the 1980s and the early and mid-1990s was in the order of
20 to 30 per cent a year, growth slowed to below 20 per cent in 2000.

Unit growth has remained stable, but competitors in the form of Wincor Siemens
and Diebolb and improvements in technology have cut margins.

By virtue of its size, Egypt with a population of 66m is the market which offers
most in the way of potential, says Mr Papaconstantinou. Currently there are only
700 ATMs in Egypt while Turkey, a country with a similar, albeit wealthier,
population, has 8,000 installed.

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April 6, 2001 Friday
London Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE UK: Going down the tubes proves good for Hunting: David
Buchan reports on how the putative mini-engineering conglomerate has succeeded
in changing its spots:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK ; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 718 words

Hunting has abandoned its pretensions to be a mini-engineering conglomerate and
become the world's leading supplier of tubes for the oil drilling industry.

Over the past 12 months the 127-year-old company - founded by a veterinary
surgeon in Durham - has changed into a largely North American business. About
two-thirds of its Pounds 1.2bn turnover is located there.

Hunting began life supplying equipment to the booming coal industry in northern
England, but quickly moved into the bulk shipping of crude oil by tanker. After
the war, it was one of the largest independent tanker owners in Britain, as well
as an aircraft manufacturer and airline operator.

The Hunting family still owns 30 per cent of the company, but the recent changes
have been led by an outsider.

Dennis Proctor, a Texas oilman, has been with Hunting Oil Services International
since 1993 and took over as chief executive in January.

Mr Proctor says Hunting will keep its headquarters and stock market listing in
London "for the moment", but its operations are effectively directed from
Houston where he is mostly based.

So far the switch from engineering has paid off, partly through luck. Mr Proctor
acknowledges the "fortuitous" way in which the oil price climbed for several
months after Hunting's decision last April to abandon its bias towards defence
in favour of oil services.

Pre-tax profits rose 11 per cent to Pounds 33.4m (Pounds 30.1m) as turnover
improved 16 per cent from Pounds 1.05bn in 1999 to Pounds 1.22bn last year,
driven by a 72 per cent increase in sales from oil services where operating
profits rose nearly fourfold to Pounds 35m.

This more than compensated for last year's cessation of Hunting's service
contract to the Aldermaston nuclear weapons laboratory. Hunting this month
concluded the sale of its defence services unit to Babcock International for
Pounds 61m, and is negotiating to sell its Irvin parachute-making business.

"Although the group had a good oil services business before," comments Peter
Hitchens of Williams de Broe, "it has been transformed by two acquisitions in
the past year." One is Vinson, a US tubular goods company acquired for Dollars
50m (Pounds 35m).

The other is Iberia Threading, a Louisiana company that uses the oil industry
technique of horizontal drilling to burrow under streets to install fibre optics
and other cables without tearing up roads.

Iberia, bought for Pounds 22.4m, contributed Pounds 6m to operating profits last
year.

It also has the advantage, Mr Proctor says, of being tied to the telecoms and
utility sectors rather than the oil sector on which the rest of the group is now
heavily dependent.

Two of Hunting's older businesses complete the group's oil orientation. It has a
64 per cent stake in Gibson Petroleum, a Calgary-based transporter of oil and
gas which, with 800 trucks and trailers, is the biggest distributor in western
Canada. The rest of Gibson is held by Texaco, which is set to be merged into
Chevron.

If Chevron does not want to keep its Gibson stake, Hunting appears ready to buy
it out. "Hunting has been involved in this kind of thing since the 19th century,
when it was hauling crude oil in steamships," says Mr Proctor.

The group also has Tenkay Resources, a small exploration and production company
that takes minority stakes in oil fields. It has done well in the past year by
participating in successful finds in the Gulf of Mexico.

But there is one downside to Hunting's new US orientation. The more American
Hunting becomes, the more it will come under US foreign policy sanctions, which
bear particularly heavily on the oil industry. All US oil and oil services
companies complain about the unilateral sanctions that forbid them to do
business in Iran and Libya where reserves are large and production costs are
low.

As an oilman who worked in Tehran for five years before the fall of the Shah, Mr
Proctor might seem ideally placed to use Hunting's UK status to take the company
into Iran. But "this would be very problematic", he says. US Treasury interprets
sanctions to "mean that no American executive can carry out business in Iran or
Libya".

But such obstacles do not bother Mr Proctor. As an oil man he has a naturally
optimistic streak. Why should he worry, "when there are so many other
opportunities elsewhere".

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March 21, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Keeping the lights on: As the California energy crisis
continues, the Republican administration is determined to find ways of
increasing the US's supply of oil and gas, write David Buchan and Nancy Dunne:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and NANCY DUNNE

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 1351 words

The US faces a severe energy crisis, and the Bush administration intends that
the country should produce its way out of it. This was the message that Spencer
Abraham, the US energy secretary, delivered in a speech on Monday. It was
designed to pave the political ground for a new energy policy still under
preparation by a White House taskforce chaired by Dick Cheney, the
vice-president.

Yet the supply-side thrust of the policy, and the administration's sense of
urgency behind it, is already clear. President George W. Bush showed last week
that he would rather break a campaign pledge than preside over energy shortages.
He abandoned his promise to seek curbs on carbon dioxide, the main
planet-warming greenhouse gas, on the ground that such controls would make it
harder for the US to go on generating half its electricity from carbon-rich
coal.

The new policy's most eye-catching features will be an attempt to open more
Alaskan and federal land to drilling, to streamline environmental permits for
refineries and pipelines, and to review unilateral sanctions on US oil companies
operating abroad.

It will not save California from further power cuts this summer - nothing can;
that state's generating capacity is now 10-15 per cent short of its peak summer
demand. In fact, there could be other "Californias", Mr Abraham suggested this
week, saying the golden state's plight was neither isolated nor temporary. Over
the longer term, however, the administration's new approach could ease the
pressure that the US places on the world oil market. The US now imports around
11m barrels a day of crude and refined products - nearly a third more than
Saudia Arabia's entire output - out of the 19.5m barrels it consumes every day.
It will also tend to focus US foreign policy on energy partners in the western
hemisphere and Middle East.

The policy's supply-side bias is no surprise. Mr Bush, like his father, was
involved in Texas oil. Until last summer, Mr Cheney was chairman of Halliburton
, the world's largest oil services company. Mr Abraham is a former senator from
Michigan, home of the automobile.

But the issues they will have to wrestle with defy simplistic remedies. For a
start, they cut across party lines. Mr Bush will find some east coast
Republicans joining Democrats in the evenly divided Congress to oppose his plan
to open up a portion of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to
drilling. His brother, Jeb, the Republican governor of Florida, has come out
against the forthcoming federal lease of Block 181 in the eastern Gulf of Mexico
for offshore drilling.

Nor can the new Bush administration, much as it might like to, simply abdicate
the federal role in favour of the market. "The biggest thing the federal
government can do is get out of the way, so that it is not a barrier to
(environmental) permitting and so that the (energy) infrastructure can be
built," says J. Robinson West, chairman of Petroleum Finance Company in
Washington. "But it has also got to act to create some uniformity in a market
that has been badly Balkanised in terms of gasoline products and electricity
transmission."

Arguably, the US has not had a national energy policy since Jimmy Carter went on
national television in the late 1970s wearing a sweater to tell Americans to
economise. Energy policy lapsed under Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior,
amounting to a willingness to go to war to protect Middle East oil but neglect
at home. During Bill Clinton's eight years, environmental restrictions drove up
demand for clean-burning natural gas but hampered its supply.

The energy industry is delighted to have an administration that has adopted its
mantra about increasing supply, especially removing many of the restrictions on
the one-third of the US owned by the federal government. "We are the only
country that denies access to areas of known potential production," says Ken
Cohen, a vice-president of ExxonMobil.

The biggest controversy over such an area centres on the bid to open for
exploration up the coastal plain of Alaska's ANWR, which is strongly backed by
Frank Murkowski, the Alaskan senator who chairs the Senate energy committee. The
coastal plain could contain anywhere between 5bn and 16bn barrels of oil,
according to preliminary estimates by the US Geological Survey.

While Mr Abraham says the new energy policy goes far wider than opening ANWR -
on which the administration might be defeated - he claims that by disturbing as
few as 2,000 of ANWR's 19m acres the US could extract as much as 300 times the
oil that it has in its strategic petroleum reserve. But Dan Lashof of the
Natural Resources Defence Council believes that only 3.5bn barrels would be
recoverable from the ANWR, based on a Dollars 20 oil price.

By contrast, Mr Lashof and his organisation accept the idea of a new pipeline to
get Alaskan gas to the rest of the US. Everyone considers this gas, extracted
with Prudhoe Bay oil and then reinjected into the ground for storage, as a surer
bet. "We know it's there, we've already had it in our hands," says Skip Horvath,
president of the National Gas Suppliers Association.

The other source of supply that US oil companies are enviously eyeing is
foreign. US officials believe that President Vincente Fox of Mexico, who has
talked of more gas links with the US, might let US companies in on service
contracts, especially in power generation, but will continue to guard his oil
industry's sovereignty. Canada, for its part, is seen in Washington as doing all
it can, providing 15 per cent of all US gas.

The oil companies' bigger hopes lie further afield - in the Middle East, home to
half the world's reserves but partly placed off limits by sanctions. US
companies do not complain about multilateral United Nations sanctions on Iraq,
but about unilateral US bans keeping them out of Iran and Libya.

Conoco, for instance, had the frustration of seeing TotalFinaElf of France walk
off with its share of a1995 contract to develop Iran's Sirri field, and has
recently had to refuse Tehran's request for advice on development of the
Azadegan field. "We stood by as a country and as a company as the Japanese went
into Azadegan," says Michael Stinson, a vice-president of Conoco. So far Mr Bush
is playing for time, having last week renewed the bans on US companies operating
in Iran while he weighs the wider future of sanctions.

At home, the situation is reversed with the energy companies urging the federal
government to intervene in areas where the latter's power to do so is shaky. Mr
Abraham calls the country's energy infrastructure "woefully antiquated".
Individual states and cities have refused to let a single refinery be built in
the US in 25 years, and yet they now require the oil companies to supply several
dozen different types of gasoline and fuel to suit their climate and air. Small
wonder there are refining bottlenecks and gasoline shortages.

Electricity deregulation has also created new gaps in the power grid. The old
links in the system, sufficient for local monopoly utilities to swap power in
emergencies, cannot cope with what the new commodity energy brokers such as
Enron and Dynegy trade across the country. The volume of transactions involving
exchange of electricity from one region to another has grown 100 times in the
last five years.

Yet Washington, in the shape of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc),
has no prerogative to site power lines; that is for states. Ferc is trying to
cajole utilities into banding into Regional Transmission Organisations (RTOs).
But persuasion is proving slow. Too slow for Enron, which is taking a case to
the Supreme Court to try to get Ferc to use compulsion in creating RTOs. It
clearly hopes the Bush administration might also stiffen Ferc's spine.

It will be ironic if a conservative Republican administration ends up riding
roughshod over states' sensibilities in order to knit the nation's energy grid
together again. But it may be necessary. "Part of the genius of the US was to
have the largest single market," mourns Mr West of Petroleum Finance. "No
longer."

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 19, 2001 Monday
Surveys AFR1

SURVEY - AFRICAN MINING: Africa's mining prospects

BYLINE: By GILLIAN O'CONNOR

SECTION: SURVEY - AFRICAN MINING ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 1280 words

By Gillian O'Connor,

Mining Correspondent

Last year total exploration spending in Africa accounted for just Dollars 293m,
60 per cent less than in the boom year of 1997. This is mainly the result of
tighter budgets worldwide, but not entirely. Africa's share of the total cake
has also fallen, from around 16 per cent to around 13 per cent.

This is certainly not because Africa is mined out. Exploration experts agree
that the continent has "wonderful mineral credibility" (min-cred), even though
reserves in some of the traditional mining countries have been substantially
depleted.

But geological endowment is only one of the factors companies consider when
deciding whether to explore. Equally important is the profile of the country in
which they are considering exploring: the politics, mining code, laws, tax,
currency, investment rules. social and cultural traditions, mining experience,
environmental and health considerations, war risk and probable security of
employees.

And since most African countries count as relatively high risk to a banker, the
prospective returns need to be higher than they would be for a comparable
project in a low risk country such as Australia or Canada.

The latest analysis of exploration spending in 'Africa from Metals Economics
Group, the independent Canadian research group, shows how worries about a
country's profile often totally outweigh its mineral credibility. Countries such
as Angola and the DRC, for example, which probably score ten out of ten for
min-cred, but zero on their country profiles, attracted predictably little
exploration spending.

Equally, countries with good profiles and min-cred. but physical barriers to
exploration, such as Botswana and Namibia, were also among the also-rans. And
countries such as Kenya and Senegal with virtually no min-cred simply do not
feature.

We could not persuade anyone to provide an official ranking of the different
countries' attractions to explorers. So here are some of their off-the-cuff
comments.

South Africa: wonderful min-cred. There may be no new gold deposits left to
discover, but the Bushveldt is one of the three sites in the world (the others
are Sudbury in Canada and Norilsk in Russia) with top grade deposits of
platinum, nickel and chromite. It also has diamonds, iron ore and mineral sands.

The country profile may still worry some North Americans but is probably the
best in Africa. and the infrastructure is excellent. Political risk low. Biggest
worry is employee security, where SA gets only a "medium" rating along with
countries such as Zimbabwe.

Miners are sharply divided over the implications of the new mining law. Long
established companies with existing rights over large tracts of land see the
proposed "use it or lose it" legislation as a possible threat which they hope
will not be realised.

Potential new entrants welcome the proposal as likely to reinvigorate the
industry. The present system vests the mineral rights in the landowners, so
anyone trying to buy new rights has to negotiate farm by farm, which is
difficult and expensive. The proposed law, which would return unexploited
mineral rights to the state, should make negotiating new rights easier, and
prevent the established companies from simply sitting on some of the most
promising areas.

Botswana: mineral credibility high, particularly for diamonds, plus some copper
in east. But

Kalahari desert sand cover and salt layers make exploration difficult. Lack of
water and tricky logistics would hamper base metal developments. Country profile
good: government has positive attitude to mining. Insignificant security risk.

Namibia: mineral credibility high. Existing operations in coastal and marine
diamonds, uranium and lead/zinc. The newly-released Sperrgebiet - "forbidden
zone" - lands could have base metal potential in the south east. Elsewhere sand
makes exploration difficult. Country profile good. Political risk low.

Zimbabwe: mineral credibility quite good for gold, platinum and diamonds, though
deposits are small. Country profile has deteriorated recently. Medium security
risk.

Mozambique: mineral credibility poor, but no exploration for 20 to 30 years. so
residual prospectivity could surprise. May be some coal and beach sands. Country
profile improving.

Madagascar: mineral credibility medium to low. Possibly titanium, nickel
laterites, bauxite. Infrastructure worries. Environmental problems because of
unique fauna/flora.

Zambia: good mineral credibility though much has already been exploited (no
longer as good as neighbouring DRO). Still some good opportunities. Country
profile probably acceptable. Political risk low.

Angola and DRC (formerly Zaire): good min-cred for diamonds, cobalt. copper,
gold and nickel. DRC's resources better than Angola's but metal difficult to
extract. Very under-explored. Security risk high to very high in DRC; high in
Angola.

Gabon and Congo: modest min-cred but worth a look. Gabon has iron ore, Congo
diamonds and potash. Congo government is a cause of concern.

Cameroon and Nigeria: no min-cred, except possibly in the north of Nigeria,
because young sediments not old rocks. (Oil yes.) High security risk in southern
Nigeria, otherwise medium.

CAR, Chad and Sudan: some gold potential and lots of uranium in sandstone - but
outclassed by deposits in Canada and Northern Territory of Australia. Logistical
problems. Very high security risk in some areas. Political risk high in CAR.

Ethiopia and Somalia: some mineral possibilities (base plus possibly gold), but
politically fraught. Security risk mainly high, very high in parts of Somalia,
but medium in parts of Ethiopia. Political risk high in Somalia.

Kenya: poor min-cred except in extreme west near Uganda. Mineral sands. Medium
security risk.

Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi: some min-cred (particularly copper and gold, also
nickel and platinum in Rwanda and Burundi). Very difficult political situation,
though Uganda lower-risk. Very under-explored.

Tanzania: some modest gold and nickel deposits otherwise limited mincred.
Political risk low.

West Africa: Ghana has wonderful gold credibility and similar rock formations
continue into the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Mali with some modest gold
deposits.

Infrastructure problems in Burkina Faso and Mali. Politics: low risk in Ghana
and Burkina Faso. Medium security risk in Ivory Coast; insignificant in Ghana
and Burkina Faso.

Liberia: high political and security risk. Has gold and diamond potential though
iron ore already mined out.

Sierra Leone: good min-cred: diamonds, gold and mineral sands, including best
rutile in the world. Politics very difficult. Very high security risk.

Guinea: wonderful bauxite. Good iron ore but transport problems, partly because
of politics. Reasonable diamond potential. One of the more stable governments in
West Africa. Medium security risk.

Senegal: min-cred low (beach sands and gold).

Mauritania: Some iron ore and diamonds, plus small base metal deposits. Long
distances; few people. Reasonable government. Low political risk.

Morocco: reasonable min-cred and sound government. Low political risk. Largest
phosphate producer in the world. Modest lead, zinc, gold.

Tunisia: modest min-cred.

Government fine: low political risk. Significant lead, zinc production.

Algeria: politics difficult, security risk high. Some min-cred with modest lead,
zinc, gold potential.

Libya: politics still too difficult. More potential for oil than hard minerals,
though some zinc potential.

Egypt: little potential, though some gold and base metal possibilities in Red
Sea hills. Low political risk.

CAR = Central African Republic

DRC Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire)

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March 16, 2001 Friday
USA Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Pariahs and their patrons: The US must use more than
commercial ties with China and Russia to stop their alliances with rogue states,
argues Thomas Henriksen

BYLINE: By THOMAS HENRIKSEN

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 823 words

The agreement this week between Russia and Iran to deepen military ties lifts
the curtain on a perplexing security challenge for the new Bush administration.
It is the intensifying but little-recognised co- operation between rogue states
and leading powers.

The agreement, which may involve the sale of millions of dollars' worth of arms
to Iran, is the latest example of an alarming trend. Last month's bombing by US
and UK forces of Iraq's souped-up radar and command centres close to Baghdad,
for example, was a response to another such agreement: among the main reasons
for the strike was a growing threat from Iraqi anti-aircraft systems that,
courtesy of Chinese advisers, was in the process of receiving a fibre-optic
upgrade.

This new dimension in containing Iraq heralds a different era in rogue state
behaviour. Rogue regimes spread violence and terrorism as well as manufacturing
biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver these
lethal payloads thousands of miles.

Throughout the immediate post-cold war, rogue states such as Iraq, North Korea
and Iran were viewed as isolated mavericks, loners that Washington could deal
with individually without the added worry of existing ties to big states. This
has changed.

Both Moscow and Beijing returned to the cold war practice of employing proxy
states to advance their agendas. But instead of pursuing an ideological goal of
spreading communism, they utilise rogues for strategic and even commercial
interests.

Russian companies, for example, export for cash arms to Iraq and nuclear
components to Iran, which threaten US interests and allies in the Middle East in
a way that the Kremlin finds expedient. This way Moscow evens the political
score for Nato's expansion eastward while demonstrating its need for due
consideration in the corridors of power.

Beijing facilitates North Korea's clandestine missile programme because this
puts the US on notice for its sales of advanced aircraft and ships to Taiwan. In
spite of declarations that it has no sway over its neighbour, China provides
material assistance, returns North Korean escapees to Pyongyang and offers
itself as a model for economic growth under a politically restrictive regime.

A year ago, Kim Jong-il, the reclusive North Korean leader, made an
unprecedented visit to the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang, indicating a
near-subordinate position toward China. Then he journeyed to Beijing. The
North's sudden agreement to a head-of-state summit in June with the South was
surely first blessed by Beijing.

It is not difficult to discern the strategic rationale behind such manoeuvring:
if tensions fall off on the Korean peninsula, there is little need of a strong
US presence in the South.

The North Korean supply of rocket engines to Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and
Iran raises hard currency, the North's international profile, and the ante for
the US, which, since Bill Clinton's 1994 frame work agreement, has hoped to buy
off this rogue's potential threat. For promising to suspend its nuclear
programme, North Korea is to receive five billion-dollar nuclear reactors,
financed mainly by South Korea and Japan. In addition, it will receive 500,000
tonnes of US oil a year until these facilities come online.

Inter-rogue collaboration is another feature of the new security landscape.
States as diverse as Pakistan, Syria and Libya buy missile technology from
Pyongyang and work with North Korea to build delivery systems for deadly
warheads.

What options does this leave US policymakers? First and foremost, the US must
recalibrate its policies to take account of changing realities. Since impeding
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the most pressing priority,
it strengthens the case for an American missile defence system as well as a
credible theatre missile defence - a regional equivalent of National Missile
Defence - for strategic allies abroad. Only when the US feels secure from rogue
missile firings or blackmail can it freely implement its foreign agenda and
genuinely protect its allies.

Second, the US must redouble its diplomatic exertions to halt Russian and
Chinese exports of missile and weapons-related technology to rogues. Commercial
engagement alone is not enough to nudge Moscow and Beijing towards free markets,
human rights and peaceful relations.

Finally, Washington must pursue forceful diplomacy that divides patrons from
rogue regimes and neutralises rogues. Since circumstances differ, the steps to
be taken against rogues can vary from muscular covert actions to topple a
dictator to forms of economic and diplomatic engagement.

But whatever the course of action, it must be sustained beyond the poll-driven
photo-opportunity approach so characteristic of the Clinton presidency.

The writer is senior fellow and associate director at the Hoover Institution
Philip Augar on the Myners Report into fund management: www.ft.com/personalview

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February 26, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK: Annan meets Iraqis

BYLINE: By ROGER BEALE - COMPILER

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK ; Pg. 48

LENGTH: 1124 words

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, will meet an Iraqi government
delegation in New York. Talks, planned to last two days, are expected to cover
trade sanctions and the deadlock over allowing arms inspectors back into Iraq.
The Baghdad delegation will be headed by Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the foreign
minister.

Nice afternoon trip

The Middle East, the western Balkans and the "Everything but Arms" (EBA)
initiative to provide full duty-free access to European Union markets for the
poorest developing nations top the agenda of EU foreign ministers and trade
ministers in Brussels. The foreign ministers' discussions will end during the
afternoon to allow them to fly to Nice for the signing of the EU treaty
negotiated in December before they return to Brussels at about midnight for
further talks on Tuesday.

Farm problems

EU farm ministers meet in Brussels for two days of talks on mad cow disease and
Commission plans for supporting the EU beef and veal markets in the short and
long term.

Cocoa pact attempt

Cocoa producing and consuming countries meet in Geneva this week for a second
attempt at finalising a new international pact to help strengthen the world
cocoa market. Cocoa prices are currently soaring, in contrast with November when
the first set of talks took place. However, the draft accord, which will replace
the existing 1993 pact that expires next September, has no market-intervention
mechanisms, relying instead on dialogue between producers and consumers,
including the private sector.

Holidays

Greece, Cyprus, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Kuwait.

TUESDAY 27

Powell in Brussels

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, joins other Nato foreign ministers in
Brussels for a meeting of the North Atlantic Council for the first time. While
he is in Brussels, Mr Powell will also meet Romano Prodi, the EU Commission
president, and Chris Patten, the external affairs commissioner.

Support for Colombia

Andres Pastrana, the Colombian president, will meet President George W. Bush in
Washington to discuss pursuing peace talks with Marxist guerrillas and continued
US support for his attempts to stamp out the illegal drugs trade.

Covering quake costs

The Indian government is expected to present a new budget to parliament. It is
likely to feature new taxes to cover the cost of the earthquake that struck the
north-western state of Gujarat on January 26.

Meeting the Mexicans

The EU and Mexico hold their first joint council under the economic partnership,
political co-ordination and co-operation agreement that came into force last
year. The EU's 15 foreign ministers and Commissioners Chris Patten and Pascal
Lamy will meet Jorge Castaneda and Luis Derbez, the Mexican foreign and economy
ministers, in Brussels.

Holidays

Portugal, Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Uruguay, Venezuela.

WEDNESDAY 28

Gulf remembrance

Vigils will be held in remembrance of those who died in the Gulf War as the 10th
anniversary of the ceasefire agreement is marked. The US-based Gulf War Veterans
Community plans candlelight vigils in Washington as part of a series of events
that are also intended to draw attention to the plight of those who have
developed serious illnesses since their return.

Explosives report

A report by the independent commission investigating the firework factory
disaster in the eastern Dutch city of Enschede is expected to be published. The
explosion at the warehouse in May last year killed 19 people, injured almost
1,000 and destroyed 400 homes.

EU pay deal

Neil Kinnock, the vice-president responsible for European Commission reform,
unveils a new pay and pensions policy to reward merit among the 20,000 staff of
the EU executive.

FT Survey

Automotive Review.

Holidays

Brazil, Taiwan.

THURSDAY 1

Tokyo trade talks

About 600 people, including government officials from Asian countries, will
gather in Tokyo to attend an international symposium on the Asian economy and
the prospects for regional integration. The participants will mainly discuss the
formation of free trade agreements in the region.

Canada sanctions bid

The US and New Zealand will seek authorisation from the World Trade Organisation
to impose Dollars 35m each in annual trade sanctions against Canada for failing
to comply with an earlier WTO ruling against its system of dairy subsidies. The
WTO's dispute settlement body is expected to establish a panel to judge Canada's
compliance. If Canada is found to be in continuing breach of WTO rules, the same
panel will act as arbitrators to determine the amount of sanctions the US and
New Zealand can levy.

Holiday

South Korea.

FRIDAY 2

Japan's budget

Japan's lower house of parliament is likely to pass the national budget bill for
the next fiscal year, which starts in April. There is speculation that Yoshiro
Mori, the prime minister, will announce his intention to resign once the bill
passes the Diet. His support rating has continued to fall after a series of
scandals in his cabinet.

Sirte summit

Colonel Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, will convene a meeting of heads of
state of the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) in Sirte, Libya, as a
follow-up to the Lome summit in July last year. There, the Libyan delegation
proposed the formation of an African political and economic union and pushed for
the establishment of a pan-African parliament by the end of 2000.

Mexican minorities

Congreso Nacional Indigena, the Mexican organisation that represents the
country's 56 ethnic minorities and those of mixed race, meets in Nurio,
Michoacan. It will be joined by Zapatista supporters who are marching through 12
states to Mexico City for a rally on March 11. The Zapatistas are demanding that
the San Andres accords, which promise local autonomy and land for Indian groups,
should become law.

Holiday

Ethiopia.

SUNDAY 4

Swiss EU referendum

The Swiss government, which is in favour of joining the EU, is asking its
citizens to vote No in a referendum on a people's initiative to open
negotiations with Brussels straight away. The government, fearing a backlash
from Euro-sceptics, says conditions are not yet right. A second initiative calls
for cheaper medicine prices through use of generic drugs and parallel imports
and a third calls for a speed limit of 30km/h in built-up areas.

For open minds

The 10th annual International UFO Congress, Convention and Film is held in
Laughlin, Nevada. The congress aims "to struggle to change the minds and
perceptions of the general public (about UFOs) while providing valuable
information to those whose minds are already open and thirsting for knowledge"
(to March 10).

Start your engines

The Formula One season gets under way with the first grand prix in Melbourne,
Australia. Compiled by Roger Beale Fax 44 20 7873 3196

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February 23, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

THE ARTS: Making drama out of dramatic real lives RADIO:

BYLINE: By MARTIN HOYLE

SECTION: THE ARTS ; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 629 words

Front Row, Radio 4's arts slot, recently considered the parliamentary drama
sparked by Peter Mandelson's resignation as a piece of theatre - an imaginative
and valid idea. By the same token, a dramatisation of the trial of the Libyans
accused of planting the Lockerbie bomb should have made great drama. In the
event Tuesday's much-heralded afternoon play Lockerbie on Trial fell between
various stools.

Lasting all of 90 minutes, almost unheard of for drama now apart from Radio 3's
adaptations of stage plays, the work began with reminders of that pre-Christmas
flight in 1988, in painfully human detail. This Is Your Life, devoted to Harry
Corbett of Sooty fame, had just started when the town of Lockerbie was caught up
in nightmare. Residents remembered a sound "like an atomic bomb" and a terrible
screaming noise. One man recalled seeing the television news of Lockerbie in
flames. "I thought, poor people . . . It always happens to other people." The
flight's number, Pan Am 103, came up. "My wife said, that's Helga's flight."

The debris was spread over 810 square miles. The police amassed 4m pieces of
material, complicated by the 1m sewing-machine needles scattered from the cargo.
At the same time the CIA was collecting evidence. A tiny fragment of green
circuitry the size of a child's fingernail put them on a trail that led to
Washington, Togo and Libya. The suspects were indicted in 1991 but the best part
of a decade of pressure passed before the trial. The preamble provided the
greatest dramatic interest, for the judicial procedure itself, of necessity much
condensed, was fatally entrusted to all-too-recognisable thesp voices. The
conviction was shattered by stagey foreign accents, fruity Levantine villains
out of an Eric Ambler thriller, or grumpy Scots advocates. They showed up as
theatrical in the wrong sense compared with the voices of real people with which
the story was interspersed.

But then drama is hard to define. Much as I love John Betjeman's Summoned by
Bells, is it really the "great drama" promised by the announcer of Radio 4's
Classic Serial slot, even with what was ominously described as a "sympathetic
soundscape"? In fact the music of Jim Parker, an affectionate old hand at
accompanying Betjeman words, was aptly wistful, discreetly suggestive rather
than pedantically underlining, slightly intrusive in perkier moments. Betjeman's
own voice held the attention for an hour. The arbitrary ending with Betjeman's
young manhood marks the work's conclusion: I mention this for those new to the
work or foolish enough to think the Sunday Serial actually puts on serials, as
neither announcer nor Radio Times bothered with the information.

There was dramatic tension, and the far from cathartic arousal of anger and
concern, in a first-rate Analysis on London's property market, the crowding out
of the vital but lower-paid such as teachers and policemen, and the system that
enables councils to accept money from developers in lieu of statutory cheap
housing. Modish Islington that, as the admirably deadpan Fran Abram put it,
markets itself as an alternative West End, is starstruck by the prospect of a
theatrical development at the cost of affordable housing. Westminster is another
council allegedly pleased to accept money as a token for good deeds. Even Ken
Livingstone's temporary HQ is apparently earmarked for luxury flats when he
moves out. At least Westminster publishes its figures; seven others do not. This
is of course all above board - the money goes on council services - but
meanwhile the mirage of cheaper housing remains just that. If this had been on
television, Jeremy Paxman would have played the outraged inquisitor and Jeremy
Vine would have hectored and blustered. Keep at it, Radio 4.

Martin Hoyle

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February 20, 2001 Tuesday
USA Edition 2

MIDDLE EAST & AFRIA: Iran oil company talks to BP, Shell on joint ventures

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRIA ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 448 words

DATELINE: TEHRAN

Iran's state-owned National Petrochemicals Company (NPC) says it is negotiating
with BP and Shell the construction of two big plants that could lead to the
biggest joint ventures formed with foreign companies since the 1979 Islamic
revolution.

Mohammad Peyvandi, NPC director of planning and development, said yesterday that
Shell was interested in investing in a plant in Bandar Imam and BP in Assaluyeh.
Both sites are designated as special economic zones on the Gulf, intended to
launch Iran as an important world power in petrochemicals.

"We will finance the projects ourselves or offer joint ventures, but normally
not majority ownership, preferably 50-50," Mr Peyvandi said. He put the value of
the ethylene and polyethylene plant being negotiated with BP at Dollars 1bn. The
plant has a projected annual capacity of 1m tonnes of ethylene.

"We have no problems with financing the schemes," he said. "We have always paid
our dues on time. Joint ventures take a lot of time to negotiate so in parallel
we are pursuing finance schemes."

Industry sources said Shell and BP were carrying out feasibility studies but
talks had not yet reached the stage of discussing joint ventures. They said some
Iranian officials had suggested that foreign companies could take a majority
stake.

Both companies are sensitive to US sanctions, notably the Iran-Libya Sanctions
Act passed by Congress that allows the US administration to impose penalties on
foreign companies investing in the Iranian energy sector. The act expires in
August, however, and is not expected to be renewed. It has so far never been
enforced.

John Browne, chief executive of BP, noting that BP has more than 40 per cent of
its assets in the US, said last week that although the British company had an
"absolute right" to do business in Iran, it would not do so without close
consultation with the US.

The big US oil companies are exerting pressure on the new administration under
George W. Bush to rescind separate executive orders, imposed by then president
Bill Clinton in 1995, that bar them from doing business with Iran.

The Assaluyeh project, with 12 phases of processing gas from the huge offshore
South Pars field, was described by one industry official as "massive".

The target date for several plants to come on stream, including the project
pursued by BP, is 2004. But the timing is already in doubt because of delays in
developing the gas field.

Mr Peyvandi said petrochemicals had overtaken carpets as Iran's second largest
export after crude oil. He predicted exports in the Iranian year to March 21
2001 would reach Dollars 800m, up from Dollars 580m last year. For regional
reports, www.ft.com/mideastafrica

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February 16, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

PEOPLE: Eizenstat joins US law firm PEOPLE

BYLINE: By LISA WOOD - EDITOR

SECTION: PEOPLE ; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 309 words

Stuart Eizenstat, until recently the Clinton administration's roving ambassador
on all matters concerning restitution for the Holocaust, is set to continue in
the world of resolving international disputes, this time with the prestigious
Washington law firm of Covington & Burling.

Eizenstat will head international business practice for the firm, of which Dean
Acheson was once a partner. He expects to devote his time to issues of trade,
sanctions and international problem-solving - rather like his past five years
mediating settlements over the Holocaust.

The firm's close political connections have continued and Charles Ruff, the
lawyer who defended President Clinton in his impeachment, was also a partner.

In recent years clients have gone to Covington & Burling for advice about
compliance with economic sanctions against Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Cuba. It
also took a case on a Japanese-American detention camp to the Supreme Court.

Eizenstat, who is taking time off to write up his experiences of the past few
years, intends to join the firm in the summer. He found the choice of firm
difficult but said he was looking forward to fresh international challenges.

He may also not be quite finished with his former job. He has helped to
negotiate agreements with Switzerland, Germany, Austria and France in the past
four years.

Austrian and French deals were signed in the last week of the Clinton
administration, as all sides hurried to reach a settlement while Eizenstat was
still in place. None of the four deals has been fully implemented and some face
potential legal hurdles, such as the new lawsuit against IBM.

The new administration has been asking for his advice and he may yet have to
spend a little more time on the mediation circuit as the deals are completed
before he throws himself back into private practice. John Authers

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February 15, 2001 Thursday
USA Edition 1

OBSERVER: New digs AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

SECTION: OBSERVER ; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 314 words

New digs

Stuart Eizenstat, until recently the Clinton administration's roving ambassador
on all matters concerning restitution for the Holocaust, is set to continue in
the world of resolving trade disputes, this time with the prestigious Washington
law firm of Covington & Burling.

Eizenstat will head the international business practice for the firm, of which
Dean Acheson - an architect of the Marshall Plan and Bretton Woods - was once a
partner. He expects to devote his time to trade, sanctions and international
problem-solving, rather like his last five years mediating Holocaust
settlements.

The firm's close political connections have continued and the late Charles Ruff,
the wheelchair-bound lawyer who defended President Bill Clinton in his
impeachment, was also a partner.

In recent years, clients have gone to Covington & Burling for advice about
compliance with economic sanctions against Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Cuba. It
also took a case on a Japanese-American detention camp to the Supreme Court.
Eizenstat, who is currently taking time to write up his experiences of the last
few years, intends to join the firm in the summer. He found the choice of firm
difficult but said yesterday he was looking forward to fresh international
challenges.

He may also not be quite finished with his former job. Eizenstat helped to
negotiate agreements with Switzerland, Germany, Austria and France. The Austrian
and French deals were signed in the last week of the Clinton era, as all sides
hurried to reach a settlement while Eizenstat was still in place.

None of the four deals has yet been fully implemented and some of them face
potential legal hurdles, such as the new lawsuit against IBM. The new
administration has been asking for his advice and he may yet have to spend a
little more time on the mediation circuit before he throws himself back into
private practice.

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February 13, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: Opec chief urges members to harmonise taxes on oil groups
COMPETITION FOR INVESTMENT STRATEGY MOOTED TO AVOID RIVALRY WITHIN CARTEL:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 376 words

Opec members should set minimum taxes on international oil companies to avoid
competing against each other for foreign investment, according to the cartel's
secretary-general, Ali Rodriguez.

Mr Rodriguez's tax harmonisation idea was floated yesterday in a Reuters news
agency interview as most Opec countries are beginning to re-open their doors to
the western oil companies shut out in the 1970s.

The chief activity of the 40-year old cartel has been fixing prices and
production quotas. But Opec was also created to "avoid damaging competition
between member countries", Mr Rodriguez recalled.

"Competition can be for market share, or for investment to increase production,
by reducing (Opec) government take and creating inequality in the organisation,"
he said.

While some Opec members might regard tax harmonisation as an infringement of
their sovereignty, Mr Rodriguez clearly wanted to use the experience of his own
country, Venezuela, where until last month he was oil minister in the government
of President Hugo Chavez, to warn them of the risks of a free-for-all rush to
attract foreign investment. The Chavez government came to power in 1999 pledging
to reverse its predecessor's generous tax breaks and holidays for western oil
companies.

"If every producing country proceeded like Venezuela has (before the Chavez
government), we would destroy Opec," said Mr Rodriguez in the interview.

While Venezuela is in the process of raising royalty taxes, most of its Opec
partners in the Middle East are wooing western oil companies to return in
various ways. Iran has allowed foreign companies back in on a buyback or service
contract basis. Algeria is passing a new law giving foreign companies almost the
same rights as its national oil company. Western oil majors are tendering for
three big Saudi gas projects, are back in Libya and hope to return to Iraq if
and when international sanctions on it are lifted.

But Ibrahim Ismail, an oil adviser to the United Arab Emirates, told a Royal
Institute of International Affairs conference in London yesterday that Opec
countries would not give western companies more than joint ventures or service
contracts, and would need to retain their own national companies to operate Opec
production quotas.

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February 9, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Shadows over Nato's unity: The partners are not yet ready to
admit it but transatlantic disputes over defence and security reflect diverging
attitudes

BYLINE: By PHILIP STEPHENS

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 1114 words

Sometime during the next year or so we can expect a crisis in the Nato alliance.
The proximate cause will be Washington's plan for national missile defence
(NMD), Europe's efforts to develop an independent military capability or, most
likely, a mixture of both.

It's tempting to say the rupture will turn out to be an argument among friends,
a spat as fleeting as it now seems inevitable. After all, there have been rows
before in the alliance. During the 1970s, Europe scuppered the Pentagon's plans
to deploy neutron bombs against the Soviet threat. A decade later it recoiled in
horror at Ronald Reagan's Star Wars. The moments passed.

This time, though, it may be different. Europe's map has been redrawn and the US
has a new set of anxieties. It has been more than a decade since the fall of the
Berlin Wall. Nato cannot pretend indefinitely that nothing much has changed.
Another way of looking at the present tensions is to see them as the start of a
profound reconfiguration of the transatlantic security relationship.

On one level, it seems premature that there should be an argument now about
missile defence and European capabilities. Neither has a certain future.

The new administration in Washington is excited by a version of missile defence
that defies the constraints of existing technologies. President Bill Clinton's
administration experimented with a relatively modest system. But, in spite of
the Pentagon's efforts to pretend otherwise, it failed. The Republican vision of
"boost-phase" interception of incoming missiles from space- or sea-based
platforms leaps further by another two technological horizons.

It may never happen. Mr Reagan's dream of making nuclear weapons "impotent and
obsolete" was merely one of many failed attempts to build a shield over American
skies. The duck-and-cover days of the 1950s saw the Nike missile defence
programme. Lyndon Johnson funded Sentinel and Richard Nixon Safeguard. None of
these repaid the investment.

Europe's project for its own defence force looks equally fragile. Sure, European
governments are committed to a rapid reaction force. But they will assemble it
only by double-counting and double-badging existing forces and by scraping
around in dusty warehouses for suitable hardware.

Anyone who imagines this will be a serious fighting force is kidding themselves.
Europe is talking about carrying out modest peacekeeping tasks - and even then
it would still need US intelligence and communications. Quite recently, one of
the project's senior figures was asked whether, in 10 years or so, it might be
able to fight a high-intensity war. The answer was unequivocal: No.

All this gives cause for comfort to those who think a crisis can be avoided.
When Tony Blair arrives at Camp David to meet George W. Bush later this month he
will no doubt be well briefed on an earlier meeting there between a president
and prime minister. It was at Camp David in December 1984 that Margaret Thatcher
extracted from President Reagan the "four principles" that would subsequently
provide a Nato framework for Star Wars. The then Mrs Thatcher was later
denounced for her "treachery" by France but the deal averted a big split within
the alliance.

Mr Blair may well consider that those principles - affirming essentially that
the US remained committed to arms control agreements and that missile defence
would be a subject of negotiation with Moscow - are as relevant now as they were
then. What a fillip to the alliance it would be if George W. were persuaded to
deliver up a similar pledge.

In return, Mr Blair might offer Mr Bush an assurance that Britain will contain
France's ambitions for European defence. Paris wants an independent planning
capability for the new force. Washington sees that as a break with Nato. Mr
Blair thinks the Americans have a point.

There should be a deal there somewhere. The mood at the meeting this week
between Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, and Robin Cook, Britain's
foreign secretary, was said to be emollient. Mr Powell welcomed Mr Cook's
assurance that the European force would remain embedded in Nato. He offered in
return that the new administration would consult its allies on missile defence.

Less clear is whether Mr Powell speaks for the administration. The battle for Mr
Bush's ear is under way in earnest. And Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon is
altogether more impatient with European sensitivities.

Mr Rumsfeld, one of Washington's political bruisers, does not like the idea of
Moscow (or anyone else) having a say in the defence of the US homeland. Serving
in Gerald Ford's cabinet more than a quarter of a century ago, he opposed the
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. When European policymakers warn that NDM
threatens the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, they get in return a sense
that Mr Rumsfeld sees that as a plus rather than a minus. But in a curious way
Mr Rumsfeld's may turn out to be the more honest analysis. NMD and Europe's
military aspirations will both have a limited impact in the short term but they
reflect the diverging preoccupations of the US and its allies. They speak to
different concepts of security 10, 15 or, more likely, 25 years hence.

In the good old days of the cold war, the Soviet menace was always more
important than any differences within the alliance. The US and Europe both
sheltered under the umbrella of Mutually Assured Destruction. But Moscow no
longer threatens a nuclear holocaust. Russia is powerful but poor. US hegemony
is assured.

So traditional deterrence has lost its appeal. US security concerns now focus on
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the missile technology
needed to deliver them. The Central Intelligence Agency warns that the US is
more likely now than during the cold war to face a missile attack. The new
enemies are the rogue states: North Korea, Iran, Libya. The capacity to destroy
them is insufficient comfort. Washington must build impermeable defences.

Europe takes from this a rather different perspective. It sees a nation that has
become too rich and powerful to send its soldiers to war or to accept that it is
anything but invulnerable to outside threat. Europe's response must be to end
the chronic dependency on its US ally and to learn to cope with the small but
lethal wars on its own continent.

In this respect, NMD and European defence are significant as much for their
symbolism as for substance. They represent changing mindsets. Neither partner is
willing to admit this. If Nato has lost its guiding purpose, the US and Europe
have nothing yet to replace it. But they cannot much longer deny that the
parameters of the relationship have decisively shifted.

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February 8, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

MIDDLE EAST - THE ISRAELI ELECTION: Sharon's victory leaves Palestinians at a
difficult crossroads: His election may fuel the intifada but divert energies
from building civic institutions, writes Judy Dempsey:

BYLINE: By JUDY DEMPSEY

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST - THE ISRAELI ELECTION ; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 729 words

Ariel Sharon's election as Israel's new prime minister could prove a mixed
blessing for the Palestinians, providing them with a reason to step up the
intifada (uprising) but diverting their energies away from establishing good
governance in preparation for statehood.

Officials in Yassir Arafat's Palestinian Authority say they know Mr Sharon will
never go as far as Ehud Barak, former prime minister, in making concessions on
land and Jerusalem.

On the other hand, they believe the PA will regain international support because
of Mr Sharon's reputation for confrontation rather than compromise.

Such calculations, however, are of little solace to Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. With a speed that has shocked the most hardened critics of
the PA, Palestinian society has fragmented rapidly in recent weeks, almost to a
state of anarchy.

"The pace of fragmentation is so fast. All energy is now being directed
inwards," said Eyed As-Sarraj, director of the independent Gaza Community Mental
Health Programme. "The level of political and domestic violence has increased.
It is very frightening."

When the intifada against the Israeli occupation began last September, it
unleashed huge energies of solidarity and unity. Crime levels went down.
Self-help organisations sprang up. "There was a real feeling we could defeat the
Israelis," said a Fatah official from Mr Arafat's political movement.

But the Palestinians soon became sapped of energy and motivation. "The PA failed
to provide a sense of direction and a strategy," said Mr Sarraj. In addition,
explained Ghassan Khatib of the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre, the
institutions of law and order soon broke down, with the PA failing to protect
them.

The heavy closures Israel imposed on the West Bank and Gaza, and between
Palestinian cities, towns and villages, meant people could not seek redress in
the courts, the police, or PA ministries. Local leaders replaced the legitimacy
of the central authority.

The vacuum left by these fragile civil institutions - rarely given independence
by Mr Arafat - was filled by anarchy. "Not only is the PA imploding; Palestine
is slipping into anarchy," says Khalil Shikaki, director of the Ramallah-based
Palestine Research Centre.

The anarchy has taken the form of gun battles, executions, assassinations,
disappearances and feudal fights. Earlier this week, the Preventive Security
forces and Hamas Islamic militants clashed for hours at the Jabalia refugee camp
in Gaza, leaving many wounded.

Last month, Hisham Makki, a director of Palestine Television, was gunned down in
Gaza by a shadowy group calling itself the Martyrs of Al-Aqsa, which accused him
of corruption. Ghazi Jabali, head of the civil police in Gaza and loathed by
many Palestinians, was detained for alleged corruption. There are unconfirmed
reports Mr Arafat has sent him to Libya.

Moh'd Abu Sharia, chairman of the General Personnel Council, the bloated
Palestinian civil service which provides thousands of jobs regardless of
qualifications, has also disappeared. Again, critics allege he was involved in
corruption.

"Much of the energy and frustration is being directed at people who are corrupt.
These are easy targets," says Mr Sarraj. "There is no rule of law. There is no
community leadership - no civil institutions to prevent this fragmentation."

Human rights activists say Palestinians are taking their anger out on the PA,
using the political vacuum to settle old scores. The economic hardship arising
from the closures has only added to the frustration on the ground, as
Palestinians accuse the PA of failing to channel funds from its private bank
accounts to help poor families, besides doing little to stamp out corruption and
crime.

A World Bank report published this week showed that poverty rates had increased
by 50 per cent since the beginning of the intifada, with an estimated one-third
of the population, or about 1m, living below the poverty level of Dollars 2.10 a
day.

The cruel paradox, say human rights activists, is that when Mr Sharon forms a
government, PA officials believe it will once again be easier to rally the
people to fight again.

"We are in a terrible trap," says Mr Sarraj. "It is very easy to direct our
energy against the common enemy. But it prevents us from looking in at
ourselves, from being pro-active instead of always reacting."

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February 7, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA: Libyans march in protest at Lockerbie verdict

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 360 words

DATELINE: CAIRO

Thousands of Libyans marched in the streets of Tripoli yesterday for the second
time in four days, shouting anti-US slogans and protesting at the detention of
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man found guilty of causing the Lockerbie
explosion.

Police were forced to fire tear gas and use batons to disperse the
demonstrators, some of whom gathered round the British embassy and tried to
break into the United Nations offices in the Libyan capital.

The protests came on the second day of a three-day national holiday called by
Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, to allow local people's committees to
protest at the detention of Mr Megrahi who was found guilty last week of causing
the explosion which killed 270 people in 1988. Libyans are angry that, while
they are being asked to pay compensation for the Lockerbie bombing, a raid on
Tripoli by the US air force in 1986 in which 37 died has not been taken into
account.

On Saturday an orchestrated demonstration of mainly young protesters also
gathered in Green Square in central Tripoli and around the UN offices. The
demonstration passed off peacefully although three men cut their throats with
razor blades apparently in protest at the verdict.

Col Gadaffi on Monday poured scorn on the judgment reached by the three Scottish
judges sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, although he did not produce any
fresh evidence on the case.

"I really don't know how the judges came to such a conclusion. I expected a
clear verdict. I didn't expect this fog," Mr Gadaffi told a press conference on
Monday.

He was particularly scornful that Mr Megrahi could be found guilty while his
alleged accomplice, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhima, was acquitted.

Mr Megrahi is likely to appeal against the verdict and his sentence of 20 years.

The Libyan leader chose instead to blame the US and in particular the Central
Intelligence Agency for the bombing.

"Ask the CIA. Perhaps they know something about it," he said, when asked who he
thought was responsible.

Britain re-established diplomatic relations with Tripoli in July 1999 after a
rupture of 15 years following a settlement over the 1984 killing of a
policewoman in London.

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February 2, 2001 Friday
London Edition 3

US & MIDDLE EAST: Gadaffi defends Lockerbie man

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: US & MIDDLE EAST ; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 323 words

DATELINE: TRIPOLI

An unrepentant Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, said yesterday he was in a
position to prove the innocence of Abdel Basset el-Megrahi, the Libyan found
guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Making his first public comments on Wednesday's verdict from the middle of a
media scrum at his Aziziya headquarters on the outskirts of Tripoli, the Libyan
capital, Colonel Gadaffi also insisted that it was Libya that deserved
compensation for the 1986 bombing by the US air force.

"Abdel Basset is innocent. The verdict of the court came as a result of pressure
from America," Mr Gaddafi told journalists. "I have new information which I will
make public on Monday."

Col Gadaffi appeared to reject the idea of Libyan compensation for the victims
of the 270 families who died in the Lockerbie bombing. But his commments came as
Libyan officials said Mr al-Megrahi would appeal against conviction and
indicated Libya would be ready to pay compensation if the court ruling were
upheld.

While rejecting any responsibility for any government role in the bombing, which
killed 270 people, Mohammed al-Zwai, Libya's ambassador to London, told the FT
that Libya would abide by United Nations resolutions "not because the state is
responsible for the act but because of our responsibility towards our citizens".

In his first comments since the verdict was delivered by a panel of Scottish
judges in Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands, Col Gaddafi chose a site inside his
sprawling base which was bombed by the US. The building has been left
unrepaired. "These are the victims. Look to the house. Who paid, who are the
victims?" he asked.

Asked about his next step, the Libyan leader said only: "We demand that
sanctions be lifted immediately."

Libya suffered seven years of UN sanctions, which were only suspended when the
two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie crime were handed over to the Scottish
authorities in April 1999. Push for full inquiry, Page 5

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February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

LOCKERBIE VERDICT: Patriotic questions on the streets of Tripoli REACTION IN
LIBYA:

BYLINE: By DRUMMOND

SECTION: LOCKERBIE VERDICT ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 397 words

On the streets of Tripoli yesterday afternoon, the reaction of most Libyans was
one of muted anger mixed with incredulity that one man, Abdel Basset Ali
Mohammed al-Megrahi, is facing a lifetime in prison while his alleged
accomplice, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.

A few young men in cars from the Jamahir, the people's committees, drove round
Green Square, which dominates central Tripoli, beeping horns and holding aloft
pictures of Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader. It was difficult to tell whether
they were celebrating or protesting at the verdict handed down at Camp Zeist.

On nearby 1 September Street, Ali Abdullah, a cafe proprietor, echoed the
general mood. "How could the judges do that? Why the change? How could they
possibly find one man guilty and the other innocent?" he asked. "Of course we're
angry that one of our fellow countrymen is facing jail."

Mr Abdullah said he and his countrymen had followed the case closely on one of
20 satellite television channels now available in Libya.

However, he would not condemn the Scottish court at Camp Zeist as being subject
to political pressures. "The Scottish courts are well known but really I don't
know," he said. "Listen, we like sports here. We follow the football in Italy
and Spain. We're not political people here."

The official Libyan reaction was very low-key. The news of the verdict was
announced as the second item on the evening TV news, and claimed an
"unprecedented victory" for the Libyan masses in forcing the US and Britain to
hold the trial on neutral ground. The lead item concerned a speech by Col
Gadaffi to a conference in Sudan.

In his shop on Mohammed Maqref Street, Khalifa Ali al-Maghrani was worried by
the prospect of a renewed blockade on Libya.

Ten years of sanctions preventing air travel to and from Libya were lifted in
1999 when Mr al-Megrahi and Mr Fhimah were handed over to the Scottish court for
trial. Libyans say prices have dropped dramatically since the sanctions were
lifted and that European tourists are returning to boost the economy.

"We suffered for 10 years because of the blockade. That was down to Britain and
the US. It could happen again," Mr Maghrani said.

His son, he added, was a pilot with Libyan Arab Airlines who trained in London
and Scotland. "I remember the English when they were here during the war," he
said. "They were good people."

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February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

LEADER: Lockerbie crime

SECTION: LEADER ; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 425 words

The families of victims of the Lockerbie atrocity may be disappointed about the
outcome of the trial of the two Libyan suspects, which ended yesterday after 84
days. The verdict leaves many questions unanswered. One Libyan intelligence
agent has been found guilty. The other defendant has been acquitted. And Colonel
Muammer Gadaffi, presumed to have ordered the crime, remains firmly in place.

This trial was never going to provide full satisfaction. But it does start to
fulfil the requirements for justice as laid out in the United Nations
resolutions on Libya. And despite its shortcomings, it marks an important step
in international efforts to combat terrorism.

The sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992 were specifically aimed at forcing it to
surrender the accused and renounce terrorism. They were suspended in 1999 when
Col Gadaffi finally agreed to the extradition. But even that might have been
impossible had the Libyan leader not received assurances that the trial would
not target his regime.

Imperfect as it may be, the UN process must continue. If the conviction of Abdel
Basset al-Megrahi is confirmed - there may well be an appeal - Col Gadaffi still
has to comply with the remaining UN demands.

The conditions include paying compensation to the families of the victims and
accepting responsibility for the crime. If his actions are satisfactory, the UN
security council should lift the sanctions permanently.

That also may be a good time for the US to reconsider its own unilateral
sanctions against Tripoli, in particular the controversial Iran/Libya Sanctions
Act, designed to prevent non-US companies from investing in the two countries.
ILSA has been ineffective. And as European companies rush to Libya, the rest of
the US sanctions do little more than keep American companies out of the
competition.

An end to sanctions, however, must not be seen as a sign of weakened
international resolve to keep Col Gadaffi in check. Sanctions on arms sales
should remain. So should efforts to ensure that Libya stays free of weapons of
mass destruction.

True, the maverick colonel now seems relatively harmless. Instead of meddling in
other countries' affairs by sponsoring rebel groups, he wants to raise Libya's
profile by promoting conflict resolution.

But his taste for mischief should not be underestimated, as evidenced by his
attempt last year to smuggle Scud missile parts through Britain. Such actions
must not be tolerated by western governments. They are a stark reminder that
Libya still has to be treated with suspicion.

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February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 2

LOCKERBIE VERDICT: Gadaffi treads a path to rehabilitation: Roula Khalaf
examines the implications of the trial's outcome for the Libyan leader. He may
reap rewards, not recriminations, if he wins a permanent end to sanctions

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: LOCKERBIE VERDICT ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 700 words

The Lockerbie case turned out, after all, to be a typical Libyan affair, lacking
a sense of clarity and closure.

But although Colonel Muammer Gadaffi may loudly express his displeasure with the
guilty verdict delivered to one of the two Libyan defendants, he is, ironically,
likely to receive more reward than recrimination in the long term.

"Even a guilty verdict for the two accused would not have been so bad for him -
the international community has already accepted Gadaffi as saying 'I was once
involved in terrorism' and agreed to be forgiving," says one western diplomat.

Despite the demands of relatives of victims for an indictment of the Libyan
leader over the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988, it
has long been clear to Libya that sufficient evidence did not exist to take the
case further. Assurances are believed to have been given to the colonel that the
case concerned the two Libyans accused, and was not aimed at undermining his
regime.

Col Gadaffi's first move may well be an appeal coupled with diplomatic efforts
to contain the damage of the conviction. "The Libyans will appeal for sure, but
they'll also let diplomacy take its course; they want to contain the situation
and to appear cool," says Saad Djabbar, a North Africa expert.

Along with a possible appeal, which will take several months, Libya will begin
its push for a total lifting of United Nations sanctions - an issue that will
take months and possibly years.

In practice the sanctions are no longer in effect, having been suspended when
Libya surrendered the Lockerbie suspects for trial in 1999. Barring outrageous
behaviour by Tripoli, they will not be reimposed. But a permanent end to the
sanctions is a symbolic gesture that Col Gadaffi is determined to achieve.

A lifting of the embargo requires Libya to fulfil several remaining UN criteria.
With the US far less enthused than Europe over Libya's rehabilitation in the
international community and under pressure from the families of the Lockerbie
victims, it can be expected to show resistance to ending the sanctions.

Once the legal process is over, Libya is likely to agree to the UN-stipulated
demand for payment of compensation - as it has indeed already done in the case
of the 1989 bombing of a UTA flight over Niger. But there are other grey areas
in UN resolutions that could lead to different interpretations by members of the
UN Security Council, with the US taking the hardest line.

Differences could emerge over whether Libya can be deemed to have ceased all
involvement in terrorism. The UK and the rest of Europe, eager to expand ties
with the Libyan regime and accelerate business access to the Libyan market - in
particular the under-developed oil and gas industry - are satisfied with Libyan
assurances that the days of sponsorship of terrorism are over.

But the US says some inactive terrorist camps have yet to be dismantled. Equally
controversial could be the requirement that Libya disclose all it knows about
the Lockerbie crime and that it accept responsibility.

Even harder for Col Gadaffi will be to convince the US to lift its unilateral
sanctions against Libya. Before leaving office, former US President Bill Clinton
renewed the sanctions first imposed in 1986 for six months rather than the usual
period of one year. The Iran/Libya Sanctions Act, which penalises foreign
companies operating in Libya and Iran, comes up for renewal in September.

"Gadaffi wants better relations with the US but the verdict makes it more
difficult - the US will accept the verdict but it will look at other ways to get
at Libya," says George Joffe, a Middle East expert.

The US families of the victims and their strong support in Congress means that
the civil case they have filed will go through and probably lead to a massive
damages award, which might be paid by the US government and compensated for from
frozen Libyan assets.

There are expectations that the new Bush administration will not renew the
sanctions act, and that oil companies will press for an end to the other
sanctions against Libya. But as Mr Joffe says: "There is also no indication that
the administration will want to be mild with Gadaffi."

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February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 2

LOCKERBIE : VERDICT: United approach ensures suspects face court DIPLOMACY:

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: LOCKERBIE : VERDICT ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 315 words

Until the summer of 1998, the handover by Libya of Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed
al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah seemed a remote prospect. Ten years after
the Lockerbie bombing, the United Nations sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992 to
force its surrender of the Libyan agents, were being eroded.

With the international community's policy against Libya at risk of collapse
London was able to convince the US, which had been under intense pressure from
the families of the victims, to agree to Colonel Muammer Gadaffi's proposal that
the suspects be tried in a neutral country.

In August 1998 the US and the UK agreed on a trial in the Netherlands but under
Scottish law.

The policy change put the Libyan leader to the test. It won instant support from
Arab countries and encouraged Saudi Arabia, Egypt and South Africa to explain
the merits of co-operation to the Libyan regime and to negotiate terms of the
deal.

Col Gadaffi sought assurances that the case would not lead to the indictment of
the regime or to charges against him. According to UN resolutions, the handover
of the suspects was to lead only to a suspension of sanctions, with a permanent
decision after the trial.

According to diplomatic sources, the colonel was provided with assurances in a
letter from Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, that the trial would not
undermine the Libyan regime.

It was also made clear to Col Gadaffi that a re-imposition of sanctions would be
virtually impossible since support for a new security council resolution would
be unlikely.

In March 1999, Col Gadaffi agreed to surrender the two accused for trial, at the
same time six Libyans were found guilty in absentia in France for the 1989
bombing of a UTA flight over Niger.

The UN suspended the sanctions and the European Union lifted its embargo, except
on military sales. By July 1999, the UK had resumed diplomatic ties with Libya.

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February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 2

LOCKERBIE VERDICT: No end in sight to the trials of victims' families THE REAL
LIFE SENTENCE:

BYLINE: By IAN BICKERTON and MARK NICHOLSON

SECTION: LOCKERBIE VERDICT ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 477 words

DATELINE: CAMP ZEIST and LOCKERBIE

Lamen Khalifa Fhimah left Camp Zeist yesterday for an unknown destination a free
man, 12 years after the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 claimed the lives of 270
people.

For the relatives of the victims, the task now is to rebuild lives changed
forever by the events of December 21 1988. For many it will prove difficult, if
not impossible.

It took only a matter of minutes for presiding judge Lord Sutherland to deliver
his verdict but the tension took its toll.

Dr Jim Swire, who leads the UK Families Association representing victims,
fainted and had to be carried out of the courtroom. Dr Swire, a family doctor,
lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing.

In the dock there was no sign of emotion. Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al- Megrahi,
Mr Fhimah's co-defendant, rocked in his chair as he was found guilty of carrying
out the bombing.

Since dawn a blanket of fog had shrouded the former military base at Camp Zeist,
outside Utrecht, in the Netherlands, where, for 38 weeks, the case has been
heard under Scottish law.

Bruce Smith, who lost his wife Ingrid, spoke for many of the US victims'
families, when he said: "It is small consolation to us but most relatives were
enormously grateful to have at least one guilty verdict."

Relief was, however, tempered by disappointment at the sentence. Peter
Lowenstein, from New Jersey in the US, said: "Twenty years is outrageous. That
works out at less than one month per life."

Despite 10,000 pages of testimony from countless witnesses, for some relatives
too many questions still hung in the biting cold air.

Rozy Vojdany Aalam, who lost a brother, said: "I did not believe they were the
originators of the crime. I don't think I could have heard any verdict that made
a difference to my feelings."

Brian Flynn, who also lost a brother, called for UN sanctions against Libya to
be restored. "Justice has been done. But the fact that the judges ruled that he
(Mr al-Megrahi) acted in concert with others and for Libyan intelligence is a
huge win for the families and we look forward to the actions that will follow
now."

Few in Lockerbie believed the trial's verdict had ended the search for whoever
was ultimately culpable for the bombing. "There'll always be concern that the
perpetrator of this atrocity has been found but the person or people who issued
the orders to carry out this disastrous act will always be free," said Joe
Meechan, a local district councillor.

Councillors said the town had probably gained some things from the disaster. A
trust fund raised to help the relatives has also contributed to improving some
civic amenities. Many in the town said they had built new friendships with
families of the aircraft's victims. And 22 Lockerbie students have enjoyed
scholarships to Syracuse University in the US from a bursary created after the
crash - 35 Syracuse students were killed in the disaster.

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February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 2

LOCKERBIE : VERDICT: Diplomatic tightrope makes for a case without precedent
LEGAL PROCESS:

BYLINE: By JOHN MASON

SECTION: LOCKERBIE : VERDICT ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 462 words

Technically, the Lockerbie trial was like any other murder prosecution under
Scottish law; in practice, it was anything but.

Along with the trial itself, the transformation of Camp Zeist military base
outside Utrecht in the Netherlands into one of the world's best- appointed
courtrooms cost some Pounds 60m, borne partly by the US government.

Proceedings were haunted by the diplomatic agreement not to use the trial to
threaten the Libyan leadership. Much of the context in which the two defendants
- both supposedly former Libyan secret service agents - had allegedly operated
had to be avoided.

The prosecution case was limited to proving two things: that on December 21
1988, Pan Am flight 103 had been the target of a terrorist bomb; and that Abdel
Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were directly
responsible for planting the device. The presumed - but unstated - motive for
Libyan involvement was the 1986 US bombing of Libya.

The central allegation was that the two men used their positions at Malta's Luqa
airport to smuggle the bomb on board an aircraft to Frankfurt. The bomb was
tagged to be transferred on board flight 103 from Frankfurt to New York. The
prosecution presented forensic evidence about the bomb itself, concealed in a
radio-cassette player inside a brown suitcase.

Defence lawyers attempted to shift blame to the Syria-based Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine. The original western view had been that Iran had
commissioned the group to bomb flight 103 in retaliation for the shooting down
of an Iranian Airbus by a US warship in the Gulf earlier in 1988.

That theory was abandoned in 1990 in favour of the Libyan connection.

Key prosecution witnesses included Tony Gauci, a Maltese shopkeeper who
identified Mr al-Megrahi as the man who bought clothing allegedly used to pack
around the bomb.

Abdul Majid Giaka, a former Libyan intelligence agent who defected to the US,
testified that a few hours before flight 103 took off he had seen the two men at
Luqa carrying a suitcase of the type in the bombing.

Edwin Bollier, managing director of MEBO, a Swiss company that made timing
devices of the sort used in the bomb, said only Libya was sold such devices.
However, he later conceded that some had been sold to the Stasi, the East German
secret police, in 1985.

Lawyers for the two men focused on a police raid on a PFLP base in Germany in
mid-1988, in which bomb-making equipment was discovered.

A report from an unnamed foreign government purportedly connected the bombing
with five PFLP members operating from Germany, and gave details of the bomb's
manufacture and how it was smuggled on board the aircraft.

Enlightenment was not to come from either of the men accused. Neither entered
the witness box.

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February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 2

LOCKERBIE VERDICT: Pattern of behaviour 'showed killer's guilt' JUDGMENT:

BYLINE: By JOHN MASON

SECTION: LOCKERBIE VERDICT ; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 514 words

Evidence against Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi showed "a real and
convincing pattern" of behaviour which demonstrated his guilt, the three
Scottish judges at the Lockerbie trial ruled.

However, there was insufficient evidence to convict his co-defendant, Lamen
Khalifa Fhimah, despite some of his conduct being suspicious, they said.

The judges also rejected defence claims that Palestinian terrorist groups rather
than Libya had been responsible for the bombing.

They also completely rejected the evidence of one key prosecution witness -
Abdul Majid Giaka, a former Libyan intelligence agent who defected to the US.

Mr Giaka implicated both defendants, notably Mr Fhimah who, he claimed, had
showed him explosives in his desk drawer at Malta airport. However, his account
was improbable and unreliable, the judges said.

They also rejected much of the evidence of another key prosecution witness -
Edwin Bollier, a director of MEBO, a Swiss company that made timing devices.

Part of his evidence belonged "to the realm of fiction, where it may best be
placed in the genre of the spy thriller", they said. However, they accepted he
had supplied Libya with timers of the type used in the bombing.

The judges believed the evidence of Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who
identified Mr al-Megrahi as the purchaser of clothing later used to surround the
bomb inside a suitcase.

The identification was central to Mr al-Megrahi's conviction, along with his
links to Mr Bollier and his movements through Malta under a false name shortly
before the bombing.

Most of the case against Mr Fhimah rested on diary entries mentioning baggage
tags and Mr al-Megrahi. The judges said although these were capable of
"sinister" inferences there was no supporting evidence to back claims that this
implicated him. Other parts of the prosecution case against him were speculative
and he should be acquitted, they said.

The judges rejected defence claims that the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine/General Command or the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front had been
involved through cells in west Germany and Sweden.

They said the clear inference was that the conception, planning and execution of
the plot was of Libyan origin. "While no doubt organisations such as the PFLP-GC
and the PPSF were also engaged in terrorist activities during the same period,
we are satisfied that there was no evidence from which we could infer that they
were involved in this particular act of terrorism and the evidence relating to
their activities does not create a reasonable doubt in our minds about the
Libyan origin of this crime."

Mr al-Megrahi, 48, has 14 days to appeal against his conviction. He was jailed
for life with a recommendation he serves at least 20 years. Lord Sutherland, the
presiding judge, told him the period was "substantially less" than the court
would have recommended were it not for his age, and that he will be serving his
sentence in a foreign country - at Barlinnie jail in Scotland.

The prosecution does not have right to appeal against the acquittal of Mr
Fhimah.

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 1, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 3

FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION: Lockerbie verdict greeted warmly but sanctions stay

BYLINE: By IAN BICKERTON, JAMES DRUMMOND, JOHN MASON, ANDREW PARKER and RICHARD
WOLFFE

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 214 words

DATELINE: CAMP ZEIST, TRIPOLI and LONDON

The UK and US governments welcomed yesterday's verdict in the Lockerbie trial,
but said sanctions against Libya would only be lifted when Tripoli abided by
outstanding United Nations resolutions.

After 84 days of trial, Scottish judges sitting in a special court in Camp Zeist
found Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer,
guilty of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie and the murder of 270 people.

They acquitted a second Libyan defendant.

The conclusion of the trial prompted mixed reactions from victims' families, who
are expected to pursue legal action against Libya in the US courts and demand
the UK government set up a public inquiry.

Mr al-Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment, which will not be reviewed for
20 years and will be served in Barlinnie prison, Glasgow.

Libya, which played down the outcome of the trial, is expected to appeal against
his conviction.

In the UK, Francis Maude, shadow foreign secretary, endorsed the case for a
public inquiry into the bombing.

But a spokesman for Tony Blair, prime minister, had earlier appeared to rule out
a public inquiry, which could address the issue of whose orders Mr al-Megrahi
was acting on. Lockerbie verdict, Page 4 Editorial Comment, Page 20

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 31, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: Lockerbie verdicts to be delivered today LAW TRIAL HAS COST ABOUT
Pounds 60m:

BYLINE: By JOHN MASON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 396 words

The Lockerbie trial will end today when verdicts on the two Libyans accused of
the murder of 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 above the
small Scottish town are delivered.

Three Scottish judges will announce whether Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi
and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, members of the Libyan security services, will serve
life sentences for the largest mass-murder in British history or walk free from
the court.

The announcement of the verdicts will be keenly followed by governments in
Britain, the US and the Middle East. Although Libya has been cautiously welcomed
back into the international community, the reactions of victims' families,
notably in the US and Britain, could prove politically sensitive.

British victims' families are expected to call for a full public inquiry into
how intelligence and airport security services failed to prevent the bombing of
the aircraft in December 1988. US victims' families are expected to resume a
multi-million dollar civil legal action against the Libyan government. Many
relatives are expected to be present in the courtroom to hear the verdicts
delivered.

The eight-month trial, held at a special Scottish court in the Netherlands, has
been unique. Libya agreed to surrender the two men to stand trial after the
imposition of economic sanctions by the United Nations.

In return, it was agreed the trial would take place in the neutral venue of Camp
Zeist, a former military base near Utrecht. It was also agreed the trial would
concentrate on the roles of the two defendants and not deal with any role played
by the Libyan government. The trial has cost about Pounds 60m, much of which has
been paid by the US government.

The prosecution has claimed the two men used their positions at Malta's Luqa
airport to smuggle the bomb on board an aircraft bound for Frankfurt. The
suitcase containing the bomb was tagged to be transferred on to flight 103 from
Frankfurt to New York.

During the trial, defence lawyers argued the explosion was the responsibility,
not of Libya, but the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine. However, the defence's ability to argue this was limited after Syria
refused to co-operate with their investigations.

If convicted, the Libyans will be given mandatory life sentences which they will
serve in a special unit inside Barlinnie prison, Glasgow.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 31, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

INSIDE TRACK: Team-builder who relishes tight corners: UNDER THE SKIN DAVID
JAMES: The veteran corporate troubleshooter has fond memories of being bombed in
Libya - but cannot tolerate 'dress-down' Fridays. He talks to Alison Maitland

BYLINE: By ALISON MAITLAND

SECTION: INSIDE TRACK ; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 1044 words

David James is one of the UK's best-known corporate rescue specialists. Brought
in last September to save the Millennium Dome from premature closure, Mr James,
63, is still busy winding up the business from a windswept Portakabin at the
Greenwich site. Already, Railtrack and Equitable Life have been mentioned as
possible next assignments.

In his long career as a troubleshooter, Mr James helped MI6 unravel the Iraqi
supergun affair after a member of his team uncovered suspect parts at a
subsidiary of Eagle Trust, the company he was chairing. He was caught up in the
1986 US bombing raid on Libya while negotiating the release of 12 British
hostages who worked for a subsidiary of Central & Sheerwood, an industrial
holding company. Other corporate missions have included Dan-Air, British Shoe
Corporation - a subsidiary of Sears, the retail group - and LEP, a security and
logistics company.

Mr James, the son of a caterer, abandoned early plans to enter the Church. He
worked for Lloyds Bank and Ford before finding his metier at Cork Gully,
specialists in corporate insolvency, in the early 1970s. He is a workaholic
bachelor, whose passions are the arts, horse-racing and cricket.

I have a very restricted social life. I don't know many people outside the
working world. So the people in the working world are hugely important. They're
a sort of surrogate family. I'm coming home when I come to work.

The people who have come (to the Dome) with me worked with me before. We've
become a very close-knit group. Nobody survives who has not delivered and been
seen to deliver. They have to be almost impervious to stress. It is not unusual
for us to do three days and two nights without stopping.

I probably have less talent than any other single member of the team. But my
talent is that I provide the glue that holds them together.

The Libyan affair (gave me) the best two weeks of my life. I've never felt
closer to a group of people, nor have I ever felt such tremendous mutual
support. We had a business that had a subsidiary trading with Libya. The whole
staff had been taken hostage. I went out to try to sort it out, little knowing
that what they were inadvertently building was supposed to be Abu Nidal's
training camp. The CIA decided to bomb it in the raid that Ronald Reagan
unleashed on Libya as part of his anti-terrorist activity. We were swept up by
the Revolutionary Guard and herded on to the beach. Never have I had anything
that got the adrenaline flying the way that did.

In most situations, I have to hit the board running on day one and move in with
a commando squad that can take control of the balance sheet, the cash. You want
totally committed, trained, experienced treasury people. I have specific
partners at PwC who will give me that support. I equally have partners almost on
full-time assignment to me at Berwin Leighton, the solicitors.

Relationships that have stood up under fire will stand the strain again.
Government is naturally suspicious of relationships. They like complete
arms-length independence. I admit that has been the biggest single issue I've
had to cope with here. There is no way I'd want to work with strangers on an
issue like this.

Linda (Thomas, his personal assistant) has been with me for nearly 18 years.
Aversion therapy is not working in her case. She knows where all the bodies are
buried in my life and she runs the world around me. I'm a live-alone bachelor,
so Linda is essential for keeping my life organised.

I get very single-minded. At times I forget that the people here have a problem
I don't have. They go home stressed out from this place to find grumpy wives and
children who haven't had quite as much time from them as they were expecting.

P.Y. (Gerbeau, the Dome chief executive) said to me: "We've learnt a hell of a
lot from you but you've learned from us too: we've taught you warmth." I said:
"I don't think that's the case. I'm probably a bit shy at the beginning but I
always end up with a great deal of identification with the people."

My close colleague John Darlington says I have one big problem: I don't come in
tough enough in my first week. "People think: he's going to kick us all around
and fire most of us; it's going to be dreadful. Instead, you come in, you're
very relaxed, you get everybody to tell you about the business and impress upon
them how much you want them to work with you. They think: this guy's a softie.
The old guard think they're going to be left in peace." By the second week I've
decided they're too stupid to get in line. I have to spend my second week being
three times harder than if I'd come in at the right level in the first place.

I've got no status hang-ups. It's what you do and how it hangs together that
counts. But my lawyers know they'll lose the account the day I get one
"dressed-down" colleague at a Friday meeting. I will not have it: I do not know
who we're going to have to bring in to those meetings from the banks and
institutions or where we're going to have to go. I will not go around with a
bunch of scruffy-looking tramps.

We (company doctors) are the last of the dinosaurs. The market has been so
stable and the lack of big rescues has meant you haven't had to train another
generation. The most enlightened banks are moving towards intensive business
care to address problems before they boil over.

Also, 20 years ago pretty well every big rescue was led by a British clearing
bank. With cross-border syndicated loans growing, the emphasis has shifted
towards international rescues. I've worked with the Manhattan rescue community
and I deplore it.

It's usuriously profitable for its exponents and ultimately destructive of
business. It does not bring about a unity of bank support towards a rescue. It
is driven by the need to protect within the lunatic laws of Chapter 11. Rescue
in America is a totally different and largely a rip-off concept.

If I were to take on another project I'd want to know that I had the health to
see it through. I'm already the oldest person I know working in the City. I've
seen too many people who have worked beyond their sell-by date. I don't want to
join that club. The biggest challenge is going to be how I adjust to the loss of
my way of life. I'm not very well prepared for it.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 31, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

COMPANIES & FINANCE UK AND IRELAND: Albert Reynolds takes command at Bula OIL &
GAS MOVE FOLLOWS SURPRISE DEPARTURE OF JOHN HOGAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, AFTER FIVE
MONTHS:

BYLINE: By LYDIA ADETUNJI

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK AND IRELAND ; Pg. 26

LENGTH: 429 words

Albert Reynolds, the former Irish prime minister, has taken management control
of Bula Resources after the unexpected departure of John Hogan, chief executive
of the small oil and gas exploration company.

Mr Reynolds, who during his tenure as Ireland's Taoiseach was a key figure in
Northern Ireland's peace process, said he would take over as Bula's executive
chairman only as an interim measure. He said the board regretted that Mr Hogan's
appointment had not worked out for either side.

Mr Hogan's departure after just five months in the post came as a surprise to
analysts and the shares were marked down 29 per cent to 1 1/4p.

The company refused to give details, but executives inside the group suggested
the departure followed increasing tension with Mr Reynolds. It is believed that
Mr Hogan had backed one of Bula's non-executive directors, Eonuh Rhee, to
succeed Mr Reynolds as chairman.

Mr Rhee also resigned yesterday to "pursue other interests".

Mr Hogan is thought to have been frustrated with the rate of progress on the
company's negotiations to obtain licences for exploration and development of the
company's interests in Iraq and Libya.

When Mr Reynolds joined the company in March 1999, he brought with him his
diplomatic links in the Middle East and North Africa. At the time, he was
granted options on 87.5m options exercisable at 1p per share.

Mr Rhee, meanwhile, was brought on board early last year partly because of his
experience in Libya. He had previously held a senior position at the Dong Ah
corporation, a Korean civil engineering company that had been involved in big
Libyan construction projects.

Bula is focused on exploration and field development in Libya and Iraq. It said
yesterday that Mr Reynolds would be "actively pursuing the company's interests
in Libya, Iraq and elsewhere in order to enhance shareholder value".

Davy, Bula's house broker, said the management changes would not alter the
group's strategy. "As far as we are concerned the business plan remains intact
and the outlook remains unchanged," it said.

The resignation is the latest in a series of events to stoke media interest in
the company, whose share price has risen and fallen on the basis of rumour and
comment on the web and in the City pages of some UK national newspapers.

Bula, formed in 1981, was initially involved in exploration of the coast of
Ireland and then shifted its focus to Russia before moving on to North Africa
and the Middle East. It was one of a number of small oil companies that floated
on the market during the middle to late 1980s.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 31, 2001 Wednesday
USA Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE UK: Former Irish PM takes Bula helm

BYLINE: By LYDIA ADETUNJI

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK ; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 256 words

Albert Reynolds, the former Irish prime minister, has taken management control
of Bula Resources after the unexpected departure of John Hogan, chief executive
of the small oil and gas exploration company.

Mr Reynolds, who during his tenure as Ireland's Taoiseach was a leading figure
in Northern Ireland's peace process, said he would take over as Bula's executive
chairman only as an interim measure.

He said the board regretted that Mr Hogan's appointment had not worked out for
either side.

Mr Hogan's departure after just five months in the post came as a surprise to
analysts and the shares fell 29 per cent to 1 1/4p.

The company refused to give details, but executives inside the group suggested
the departure followed increasing tension with Mr Reynolds. It is believed that
Mr Hogan had backed one of Bula's non-executive directors, Eonuh Rhee, to
succeed Mr Reynolds as chairman.

Mr Rhee also resigned yesterday to "pursue other interests".

Mr Hogan is thought to have been frustrated with the rate of progress on
negotiations to obtain licences for exploration and development of interests in
Iraq and Libya.

When Mr Reynolds joined the company in March 1999, he brought with him
diplomatic links in the Middle East and North Africa. At the time, he was
granted options on 87.5m options exercisable at 1p per share.

Mr Rhee, meanwhile, was brought on board early last year partly because of his
experience in Libya. He had previously held a senior position at the Dong Ah
corporation, a Korean civil engineering company.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 30, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 1

SHORTS: Britain aims to keep ties with Libya

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 30 words

Britain aims to keep ties with Libya

The Foreign Office said it was determined to maintain Britain's diplomatic
contacts with Libya whatever the Lockerbie trial verdict. Page 5

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 30, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 2

NATIONAL NEWS: Lockerbie verdict 'will not affect Libyan links'

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS ; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 432 words

The Foreign Officeyesterday underlined its determination to maintain Britain's
diplomatic engagement with Libya regardless of the verdict in the Lockerbie
trial.

As families of the victims await the verdicts on the two Libyans accused of
killing 270 people by planting a bomb on board Pan-Am flight 103, which exploded
above the Scottish town in December 1988, officials insisted that "the verdict
itself has no direct implication for the bilateral relationship".

Even if Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima, the Libyan suspects
now on trial, were convicted, this would "say something about Libya in 1988",
said one official, "but the Libya we're dealing with is that of 2001 . . . our
judgment is done against present behaviour".

The Netherlands court could declare the two defendants guilty, not guilty or
"not proven".

Although a guilty verdict would be seen as confirming suspicions that Colonel
Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, ordered the bombing, it could also lead to a
lifting of United Nations sanctions against Libya. The sanctions were suspended
in 1999 after Libya handed over the two suspects.

A guilty verdict would lead the UK to engage with Tripoli to ensure that it
fulfils the remaining requirements in UN security council resolutions, including
paying compensation to victims and accepting responsibility for the actions of
Libyan officials.

"The Libyans have indicated that they want to put the sanctions and Lockerbie
behind them, their body language has been that they want to accept the verdict
and move on," said an official.

"We are assuming the Libyans are still operating in a positive spirit, that
they'll co-operate."

The UK resumed diplomatic relations with Libya in July 1999 after a 15-year gap.
The move came after Col Gadaffi handed over the two suspects and the UN
suspended the sanctions. Since then, the Foreign Office has backed trade
missions to Tripoli amid growing European business interest in oil and gas and
infrastructure contracts.

The resumption of ties, however, has not been without controversy. Two potential
ambassadors Col Gadaffi wanted to send to London were deemed unacceptable by the
Foreign Office - which delayed the staffing of the top job at the embassy until
this year.

Most embarrassing was last year's disclosure of an apparent Libyan attempt to
smuggle Scud missile components through Britain.

"We have no illusions about aspects of Libya," said a UK official, adding,
however, that it was in the UK's "overall strategic national interest" to have
dialogue with Tripoli on "several areas of difficulty".

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 24, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 2

AFRICA, ASIA-PACIFIC & MIDDLE EAST: Fake flowers and sympathies for Kabila

BYLINE: By MARK TURNER

SECTION: AFRICA, ASIA-PACIFIC & MIDDLE EAST ; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 511 words

DATELINE: KINSHASA

Congo yesterdaylaid torest its assassinated president Laurent Kabila with
artificial flowers, at a state funeral attended by the allies and army officials
that many suspect may have had a hand in his downfall.

Leaders and dignitaries filed past and threw bright cloth blooms at his tomb,
following a two-hour service at the Chinese-built People's Palace in Kinshasa.

Mr Kabila was shot in his office last Tuesday by a bodyguard, who was then
immediately shot himself before he could give any explanation. The man-made
wreaths that had surrounded Mr Kabila's casket were lucky to escape the wilting
that the funeral's attendants suffered in Kinshasa's oppressive heat.

Eight senior officers sweated as they struggled to lift the casket from its
satin covered podium - where it had lain in state for two days - on to a waiting
trolly, after which it was placed on a Landrover and whisked to the mausoleum.

It was an affair full of pageantry: a queue of brass bands took turns to belt
out ear-splitting tunes, some mournful, many catchy enough to prompt a little
toe-tapping from attendants.

Heavily-armed Zimbabwean and Angolan soldiers a number with grenades and
toothbrushes sticking from their top pockets, thronged the affair. Two
helicopter gunships buzzed the people's palace, jinking from side to side as
they flew past.

Huge cheers erupted as Sam Nujoma, Robert Mugabe and Eduardo dos Santos, the
presidents of Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola, arrived to pay their respects.
Frederick Chiluba and Omar el-Bashir, the presidents of Zambia and Sudan, were
also there, as were delegations from Iran, Cuba, Libya and Belgium.

Laurent's son and the new president Joseph Kabila, dressed in a sleek black
suit, watched inscrutably from his red chair behind the podium. Many feel he may
be more open to negotiations with his opponents than his hardline father, with
whom he is said to have had disagreements. But outside the mood grew distinctly
hostile to white foreigners, as journalists were jeered and jostled by the vast
crowds.

Stones were thrown at a Sabena coach carrying officials and reporters
accompanying Louis Michel, the Belgian foreign minister who arrived on the first
leg of a seven-country regional tour. "You killed him, now you come to bury
him," cried one voice. Earlier, a Belgian security official had been detained
after a small tussle with Zimbabwean forces.

They may have been prompted by the state-run l'Avenir newspaper, which has
accused the US and Belgium of instigating the assassination, and planning an
attack upon Kinshasa via Brazzaville with Nigerian and Somali mercenaries.

Mr Michel met Joseph Kabila in the morning, but a spokesman said the meeting did
not constitute recognition of his appointment.

"The only way to get a legitimate government in the Congo is through the
inter-Congolese dialogue," he said, referring to the stalled political process
to be facilitated by former Botswanan President Ketumile Masire.

Joseph Kabila was reported to have replied that his priorities were peace,
reconstruction and "gradual democracy".

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 23, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 2

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Cool attitude may benefit UK

BYLINE: By MICHAEL JOHNSON

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 253 words

From Mr Michael Johnson.

Sir, As Richard Wolffe's article makes plain ("Security issues, not ideology,
colour the view from the US", January 19), the new President Bush will do this
country a real service if his more reserved attitude towards Europe, including
the UK, puts an end to the sentimental delusion about a special Anglo-American
relationship that has skewed British policy for so long.

The UK and the US share strong linguistic, historical, cultural, political and
economic bonds and of course it suits British politicians of all stripes to
claim that they get a special hearing in Washington.

But the truth is that, at least since Suez, there has been no special
relationship - or rather, only when it suited the American side and usually for
military reasons (cruise missiles or bombing Libya). Overwhelmingly, US
administrations now expect to deal with the European Union as a whole. When
transatlantic trade disputes break out, the US has usually been only too ready
to include the UK in its retaliation hit-lists. Margaret Thatcher sometimes
understood this, as when in 1982 she stood up to Ronald Reagan over the Soviet
pipeline dispute. Tony Blair has never understood it and William Hague is
evidently determined not to understand it.

If the US now takes a more beady-eyed and interests-based approach to its
relations with Britain, perhaps more of our own politicians will understand
better where our true and immediate interests lie: in Europe.

Michael Johnson, 10 Avenue Road, London N6 5DW

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 23, 2001 Tuesday
London Edition 3

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: US investigates Iran-China oil deal

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 335 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The US State Department is investigating a deal reached this month between
Iran's national oil company and a Chinese state-owned oil group to determine
whether it violates US laws that restrict foreign investment in Iran's oil
sector.

A State Department official said yesterday the deal between Sinopec and the
National Iranian Oil Company would be scrutinised under the Iran-Libya Sanctions
Act, a controversial 1996 law that bars foreign companies from investing more
than Dollars 20m (Pounds 13.5m) in any Iranian oil or gas project. The agreement
calls for Sinopec to invest Dollars 150m in upgrading two refineries in Tehran
and Tabriz and building the Neka oil terminal on the western side of the Caspian
Sea

. According to the Iranian news agency, Sinopec bid for the project in October
1998 against companies from the UK, Germany, South Korea, Spain and France.

The official said the US opposed investment in Iran because of its efforts to
acquire weapons of mass destruction, its opposition to the Middle East peace
process and continued human rights violations.

Sinopec is a unit of the China Petrochemical Corporation, the second largest oil
company in China, and has traded on the New York Stock Exchange since its
Dollars 3.4bn initial public offering last October. The company's offering
prospectus made no mention of the Iranian investment.

The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act technically forbids such investments and empowers
the president to levy a broad range of sanctions, including financial penalties
such as denial of US bank loans or credits.

The Sinopec deal could be the first test of whether the administration of George
W. Bush plans to take a tougher approach with respect to the Iran sanctions.

Industry lobbyists in Washington say it is unlikely that the Bush administration
would single out a Chinese company for sanctions after refusing to enforce the
law against European companies.

"Why would they come down on China and ignore all these other infractions?"
asked one lobbyist.

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January 19, 2001 Friday
USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Lockerbie judges consider verdicts

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 35 words

Lockerbie judges consider verdicts

The judges in the Lockerbie trial retired to consider their verdicts on two
Libyans accused of killing 270 people by planting a bomb on board Pan Am flight
103. UK, Page 8

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January 15, 2001 Monday
London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Topping up in Vienna without fuelling a crisis: Opec must
rescue the sliding oil price without triggering a dangerous rise in energy
costs, says David Buchan:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 1045 words

At the height of the Vienna ball season, a more serious dance comes to the
Austrian capital this week as ministers of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries gather on Wednesday to decide how to influence the world's
oil price, and maybe even its economy.

Everyone assumes the cartel, worried about saturation of the oil market ahead of
this spring's seasonal downturn in demand, will make a sizeable cut in its
members' output quotas to sustain the oil price.

Opec's traditional price hawks - Kuwait, Iran and Libya - and smaller producers
such as Qatar, keen to maximise revenues, have talked of a cut of up to 2m
barrels a day in Opec's official production level of 26.7m b/d (which excludes
Iraq, subject to United Nations sanctions). Saudi Arabia, Opec's largest
producer, has spoken of a 1.5m b/d reduction. Even Bill Richardson, the US
energy secretary who, ahead of Wednesday's meeting, has been lobbying Opec
ministers to keep the oil taps open, yesterday conceded the inevitability of a
cut that he hoped would be "as small as possible".

Talk of cuts has done a bit more than stop the sharp slide from last October's
peak of Dollars 35 for a barrel of Brent to under Dollars 25 late last month. At
last Friday's market close, New York's West Texas Intermediate had rallied to
Dollars 30, London's Brent had revived to nearly Dollars 26, while the basket of
Opec members' generally poorer quality crudes was back about Dollars 24.

This well-established price spread reflects quality and transport discounts for
different crudes, but can lead to confusion between consuming and producing
countries. Mr Richardson and his United Arab Emirates counterpart, for instance,
could apparently agree at the weekend that Dollars 25 was a reasonable price for
oil, but evidently had in mind crudes whose prices actually differed by Dollars
6 a barrel.

The market has already factored an Opec cut into current prices for oil. But if
on Wednesday Opec somehow overdoes the reductions, it could send the oil price
shooting up again and tip the world economy into recession. The US Federal
Reserve cited energy prices, of which oil is the leading indicator, as one
reason behind its recent half-point cut in interest rates. But there are limits
to which the Fed and other leading central banks can, or should, accommodate
further energy price rises in their monetary policies.

If, on the other hand, Opec does not cut output enough, the oil price will
continue to slide. This would help the world economy. On the assumption of an
average Dollars 25.3 price for Brent this year (compared to Dollars 28.4 last
year), the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies estimates that world
oil consumption could increase by 1.25m barrels a day this year, compared to a
1.1m b/d rise in 2000. But lower prices would pose serious problems for Opec
countries and for the international oil companies. The latter are planning a 19
per cent increase in their spending on exploration and production this year. The
companies all claim to be soberly basing new spending on oil prices of Dollars
14-Dollars 16, but would be dismayed if prices really fell to that level.

"Trying to set oil prices is like driving a car facing backwards," says Peter
Caddy, an oil market expert with Petroleum Argus publications. Opec producers
will inevitably look back at the extraordinary combination of events in
December, when Iraq in its disputes with the UN effectively cut its production
by 1.3m b/d, and still the oil price went down. Iraq's fellow Opec members took
this as clear proof that the market was over-supplied. But there were other
factors behind December's price decline, such as an end to panic buying by many
Asian oil importers.

Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the former Saudi oil minister, last week counselled
Opec to watch what the Iraqis do and then take action. This is easier said than
done. It would be highly convenient for the rest of Opec if Iraq, which is still
shipping only a portion of the 2.3m b/d it was producing last November,
continues to bear the brunt of cuts. But no one really knows what Baghdad is up
to, and its Opec partners may be still be left guessing if reports that Iraq
will not be represented at ministerial level in Vienna are true.

Opec should also look beyond Baghdad to the state of world oil stocks, says
William Ramsay, deputy director of the Paris-based International Energy "If you
only focus on prices, you can end up taking policy decisions that come back and
bite you," he warns. The IEA, set up by industrialised oil-importing countries
as a counterpoint to Opec, ac-cepts "some reduction (in Opec production) might
be appropriate" towards the summer, he says. But his message to the ministers in
Vienna is "don't be in such a hurry to reduce (output) until stocks are higher".
Where a couple of years ago IEA countries had stocks to cover 58 days of oil
consumption, this is now down to 52 days' worth. Lower stocks also increases
market volatility and price swings, which is bad for consumers and producers
alike.

Such warnings appear to have fallen on deaf ears. This is particularly striking
in the case of Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer and traditional
price moderate. With unusual directness, Saudi Arabia has backed its talk of a
production cutback by announcing a reduction in February deliveries to some big
western customers. "This is a terrific change in how the Saudis do business",
says Peter Gignoux, a trader with Salomon Smith Barney. But he cautions an
official cut might be less than it seems because some Opec countries are
under-producing; the IEA believes that Opec is producing 300,000 b/d less than
the 3.7m b/d total increase it announced last year.

The Vienna meeting might also allow the Saudis to take a swipe at the outgoing
Clinton administration. As US energy secretary, Mr Richardson has made a habit
of high-profile lobbying trips around Opec producers. But this one coincides
with rising Arab criticism of how the Clinton administration handled the
Israel-Palestinian dispute. If the Saudis endorse a big oil cutback this week,
it will look like a poke in the eye for the two Bills - Clinton and Richardson -
even though it will be George W. Bush who will inherit the consequences.

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January 12, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

MIDDLE EAST & ASIA: Shia leader dies in Beirut NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By GARETH SMYTH

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST & ASIA ; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 94 words

DATELINE: BEIRUT

Shia leader dies in Beirut

Imam Mohammed Mahdi Shamseddin, Lebanon's leading Shia Muslim cleric, died late
on Wednesday in Beirut, two weeks after returning from cancer treatment in
Paris.

Imam Shamseddin, 66, took over the Higher Shia Council in 1978, after Imam Mussa
Sadr, its founder, disappeared during a trip to Libya. He became the council's
president in 1994.

In 1983 he called on all Muslims to conduct "comprehensive civil opposition" to
Israeli occupying forces, and in 1985 declared a defensive jihad (holy war)
against Israel. Gareth Smyth, Beirut

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January 11, 2001 Thursday
London Edition 1

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Foolish to make friends again with rogue states

BYLINE: By ALAN TONELSON

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 172 words

From Mr Alan Tonelson.

Sir, All Americans should thank Philip Stephens for the potential strategic
warning he provided in "Vulnerability of a superpower" (January 5). Worried
about stronger US demands for defence burden-sharing and even a "US retreat from
its bases in Europe" (even though the Bush national security team consists
entirely of staunch Nato supporters), Mr Stephens suggests that the US's allies
might respond "sanely . . . by deciding it was prudent to be friends again with
Iran, Libya, even Iraq".

Aligning with rogue states rather than devoting more resources to Europe's own
defence - now there's a formula for foreign policy success! Nonetheless, if such
thinking really exists in European diplomatic circles - as Mr Stephens is surely
hinting - better that the US finds out now. For nothing could be more dangerous
for Americans than to continue linking US security to any governments this
foolish.

Alan Tonelson, Research Fellow, US Business and Industry Council, 910 16th
Street NW, Washington, DC 20006, US

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January 11, 2001 Thursday
USA Edition 2

US AND CANADA: Clinton reduces export curbs on computers

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: US AND CANADA ; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 478 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The Clinton administration yesterday sharply reduced export restrictions on
high-performance computers after an internal government review concluded such
controls were no longer effective in discouraging weapons proliferation.

The move, in the waning days of the administration's term, represents the
clearest statement yet that the US intends to abandon nearly all export controls
on computer hardware. Such controls, in place since the cold war, are intended
to prevent adversaries from acquiring computers that could aid in the design of
sophisticated nuclear or conventional weaponry.

But US computer makers have long argued that the controls are costly and hamper
US computer exports without enhancing US security. The administration said
yesterday that it now agrees.

"The administration has concluded that there are no meaningful or effective
control measures for computer hardware that address the technological and
marketplace challenges identified," the White House said.

The announcement followed an extensive inter-agency review launched in late
1999. The US Defence Department, which has traditionally favoured controls on
hardware, reversed that position and concluded the focus should be solely on
protecting classified software in weapons design.

Advances in computing power have been such that an ordinary modern workstation
is more powerful than the supercomputers that were used to design the entire US
nuclear weapons arsenal. The ability to cluster lower-speed computers in a
network that effectively mimics a supercomputer has also made it more difficult
to maintain effective controls.

"The real key is in the software and the know-how, and that's not transferred
when you sell somebody a box," said Dan Hoydysh, director of trade policy for
Unisys, the US information technology company.

The US has eased controls on computers six times since 1993. The White House
said it would have preferred to eliminate most hardware controls entirely, but
was prevented by congressional legislation.

Instead, the US will raise by three times the power of computers that can be
exported without a government licence to countries such as China, Vietnam, India
and Russia.

The new threshold is set at roughly the level of computing power achievable
through an easily assembled network of desktop computers, but below the power of
high-end servers.

The administration said it would eliminate all controls to Latin America, South
Korea, Asean countries, Slovenia and most of Africa. Computer exports will still
be prohibited to Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Sudan.

The Clinton team will also recommend to Congress a longer-term strategy for
ending controls based on computing power. The proposal is likely to be resisted
by some Republicans, who have charged that lax US export controls have led to
the transfer of weapons technology to China.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 9, 2001 Tuesday
Japan Edition 1

SHORTS: Lockerbie trial nears end

SECTION: SHORTS ; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 28 words

Lockerbie trial nears end

The trial of two Libyans accused of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland, heard its last evidence. Britain, Page 12

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 5, 2001 Friday
London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Vulnerability of a superpower: The more complete America's
global dominance, the more complex its interests are for George Bush to defend

BYLINE: By PHILIP STEPHENS

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS ; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 1120 words

The trouble with empires is that they have too many frontiers. Face down the
Visigoths and Vandals and along come the Hunnic hordes. Contain the Celts and
confront the Angles and the Saxons. The barbarians are forever at the gates.

The American empire is different. In the 21st century, it is no longer necessary
to occupy land to project power. Yet the economic and military hegemony of the
US is no less real for the absence of extended geographical boundaries. And,
just as the US is now uniquely powerful, so, like many of its predecessors, it
feels uniquely vulnerable.

As the single superpower and the engine of the economic process we call
globalisation, America's interests are blind to old-fashioned frontiers.
Everywhere it cares to look, the US has a stake. It might be straightforwardly
geopolitical, as in Europe, the Middle East or the China seas. Sometimes what
matters is the success of US businesses or, in times of financial turmoil, the
solvency of Wall Street's banks. Always, however, there is an interest.

We can see too another characteristic of more traditional empires. The greater
its sway, the more the US frets about its security. Scarcely more than a decade
ago, it lived with a finger on the nuclear button. In the shadow of the Soviet
threat, extreme risk was an unavoidable fact of life.

Effortless superiority has engendered a different psychology. America's
unchallenged might must insulate it from the smallest dangers. The sharper its
military edge, the more certain it must be that its citizens are safe and its
armed forces exempt from the grim reality of warfare. It must bomb from
15,000ft, fire from miles behind the battlefield.

Here is the conundrum facing George W. Bush's incoming administration. The more
complete America's global dominance, the more complex, entangled and extensive
its national interests. The more, in short, it has to lose.

Take the tenor of a recent report from the Central Intelligence Agency on
prospects for the next decade and beyond. It starts on an upbeat note: "US
global economic, technological, military and diplomatic influence will be
unparalleled among nations as well as regional and international organisations
in 2015."

Then come the buts. Adversaries, real and potential, will not acquiesce. Nor,
when their interests conflict, will allies. Opponents will not confront the US
head on. Instead "they will try to circumvent or minimise US strengths and
exploit perceived weaknesses". Rogue states, international terrorists and
criminal conspiracies will all threaten the US "homeland". The advanced
technologies that have given the US its pre-eminence will soon arm its enemies.

The CIA calls these "asymmetric" risks but warns that the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction makes them no less deadly for that. Its judgment
(this one perhaps tailored to self-interest) is that the US will be more
vulnerable to missile attack in the next 15 years than it was during the cold
war.

The response thus far of Mr Bush and his close advisers has been to promise
clarity in foreign policy. The new administration will give sharper definition
to "the national interest". It will focus on the big geostrategic relationships
- particularly with Russia and China. It will avoid imperial overstretch by
disavowing humanitarian interventions. It will expect Europe to deliver more of
its own security. It will build a National Missile Defence and advance US
military superiority in space. And it will halt the tide towards global
governance by applying a strict national interest test to multilateral
entanglements.

As Condoleeza Rice, who will serve as Mr Bush's national security adviser, has
put it: "American foreign policy in a Republican administration should refocus
the US on the national interest and the pursuit of key priorities." This chimes
with the doctrine of Colin Powell, the secretary of state-designate, that the US
should deploy its military only when victory is more than certain and the risk
of casualties minimal.

General Powell personally opposed the decision to go to war against Iraq in 1991
and, more vehemently still, US intervention in the Balkans a few years later. He
has promised a review of all deployments overseas.

There is a seductive simplicity here. Those who worry now about an isolationist
White House have often been among the critics of US imperialism. If America
draws its frontiers more tightly, who are its allies to complain?

Here, though, lies the snag for Mr Bush. In opposition, it is always easy to
draw straight lines. In power, they soon become blurred and tangled by
realities. Of course, one can produce a shortlist of the trends - Russia's
response to decline, a more assertive China, deadly stalemate in the Middle East
- most likely to impact directly on US security. But developments elsewhere
cannot be neatly divided between those that impinge on America's national
interest and those to be safely ignored.

Take the Balkans. Nothing would be easier than to withdraw the 10,000 US troops
in Bosnia and Kosovo. Nor, for that matter, to begin bringing the GIs home from
their bases in western Europe. Let the Europeans police their own continent.

But how would Washington feel if Moscow stepped back into a Balkan chaos? How
far would US security be enhanced if its allies responded, sanely, to a US
retreat from its bases in Europe by deciding it was prudent to be friends again
with Iran, Libya, even Iraq? How, as it focuses on a few big issues, will a Bush
administration persuade its enemies (and friends) to halt the proliferation of
lethal technologies? How safe will America be behind its star wars shield if
Russia sells its missile blueprints to the highest bidder?

There are scores of issues - from Afghanistan's opium crop to the health of
Argentina's banks - where narrow national interests cannot be separated from
those of a wider international community.

The global financial stability promoted by institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund is not driven by misguided notions of international
philanthropy or world government. It serves US prosperity.

These interdependencies are set to become even more complex. As the CIA says:
"States will continue to be the dominant players . . . but governments will have
less and less control over the flows of information, technology, diseases,
migrants, arms and financial transactions across their borders." In other words,
we will need more, not less, international governance.

Bill Clinton's conduct of foreign affairs was imperfect. But after a time he
understood two important things. For those who rule an empire, domestic and
foreign policy are indivisible. And the American empire has a thousand
frontiers.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 3, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: Saudi call for production cuts fails to lift oil prices

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and RUTH SULLIVAN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY ; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 447 words

DATELINE: LONDON

Saudi Arabia, Opec's leading producer, yesterday called for a large cut in the
cartel's oil production later this month, but the move produced only a brief
rally in the oil price.

The Saudi call for a cut of 1.5m barrels a day appeared to convince the oil
markets that Opec would reduce its members' production quotas when it meets in
Vienna on January 17, but that this would not necessarily halt a continued slide
in the oil price from last October's peak of Dollars 35.

After a weekend meeting of the Gulf Co-operation Council, which also includes
the Opec members Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, a Saudi official
told the Reuters news agency that GGC leaders had told their ministers "to do
whatever was needed to achieve the targeted price of Dollars 25 for the Opec
basket". To achieve this, a cut of 1.5m barrels per day (bpd) would be needed,
the official judged.

The size of the proposed cut took some traders by surprise. "It is a dramatic
proposal as we had been expecting calls for cuts of 1m barrels a day," said
Peter Gignoux, a trader at Salomon Smith Barney. Nonetheless, the Saudi call
failed to shake market belief in adequate or even excessive world oil supplies.

Brent February futures on London's International Petroleum Exchange rose 98
cents to Dollars 24.90 in mid-afternoon trading before falling back to Dollars
24.46 later in the afternoon, while on the New York Mercantile Exchange, oil
futures jumped 54 cents to Dollars 27.34 a barrel in morning trading before
falling back to Dollars 26.87 at midday.

Other members of the 11-nation Opec cartel, including Iran and Venezuela and
Libya, have already noted the need for oil production cuts to pre-empt the
seasonal decline in consumption next spring.

Therefore agreement on cuts this month is considered highly likely. The US has
put pressure on Saudi Arabia, as Opec's swing producer, to maintain oil output,
but Washington's leverage will be weakened by the imminent change of US
administration.

The Saudi official's reference to a target of Dollars 25 for the Opec basket
implies a higher price for the Brent benchmark crude. Traditionally at a quality
discount to Brent, the Opec basket composed of the crude oils of the cartel's
producers traded all last week at less than Dollars 22 per barrel.

A cut of 1.5m barrels a day would reduce production for the 10 Opec members with
quotas by about 5 per cent to just over 25m barrels a day.

Iraq is not covered by Opec quotas, because it is restricted by United Nations
sanctions. However, fresh problems with Iraq, coupled with severe cold in the
US, could yet spur an increase in oil prices, market traders said. Oil stumbles,
Page 32

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January 3, 2001 Wednesday
London Edition 1

FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS: Saudis seek big cut in oil output

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and RUTH SULLIVAN

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS ; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 446 words

DATELINE: LONDON

Saudi Arabia, Opec's leading producer, yesterday called for a big cut in the
cartel's oil production this month, but the move produced only a brief rally in
the oil price.

The Saudi call for a cut of 1.5m barrels a day appeared to convince the oil
markets that Opec will reduce its members' production quotas when it meets in
Vienna on January 17, but that this would not necessarily halt a slide in the
price from last October's peak of Dollars 35.

After a weekend meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes
Opec members Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, a Saudi official told
the Reuters news agency that GCC leaders had told their ministers "to do
whatever is needed to achieve the targeted price of Dollars 25 for the Opec
basket".

To achieve this, a cut of 1.5m barrels per day would be needed, the official
said.

The size of the proposed cut took some traders by surprise.

"It is a dramatic proposal, as we had been expecting calls for cuts of 1m
barrels a day," said Peter Gignoux, a trader at Salomon Smith Barney.

However, the Saudi call failed to shake market belief that world oil supplies
are adequate or even excessive.

Brent February futures on London's International Petroleum Exchange rose 98
cents to Dollars 24.90 in mid-afternoon trading before closing at Dollars 24.30.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures jumped 54 cents to Dollars 27.34
a barrel in morning trading before falling back to Dollars 26.87 at midday.

Other members of the 11-nation Opec cartel, including Iran, Venezuela and Libya,
have already stressed the need for production cuts to pre-empt the seasonal
decline in oil consumption next spring, making agreement on cuts this month
highly likely.

The US has increased pressure on Saudi Arabia to maintain oil output, but
Washington's leverage will be weakened by the imminent change of administration.

The Saudi official's reference to a target of Dollars 25 for the Opec basket
implies a higher price for the Brent benchmark crude.

The Opec basket, composed of the crude oils of the cartel's producers,
traditionally sells at a quality discount to Brent. It traded all last week at
under Dollars 22 per barrel.

A cut of 1.5m barrels a day would reduce production for the 10 Opec members with
quotas by around 5 per cent to just over 25m barrels a day, about a third of
world production.

Iraq is not covered by Opec quotas, because it is restricted by United Nations
sanctions.

However, fresh problems with Iraq, which has not loaded oil since December 31,
coupled with severe cold in the US, could yet spur an increase in oil prices,
traders said. Editorial comment, Page 18 Commodities, Page 32

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 30, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

EUROPE: Yugoslav regime recalls brother of Milosevic

BYLINE: By IRENA GUZELOVA

SECTION: EUROPE; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 375 words

DATELINE: BELGRADE

The brother of Slobodan Milosevic, ousted Yugoslav president, was officially
recalled from his position as ambassador to Moscow yesterday, as were 16 others
appointed by the old regime.

Among them were ambassadors to Libya, Israel and Macedonia, important trading
partners or transit routes for money laundering.

Yugoslavia's almost exclusive reliance on Russian gas and its large imports of
crude oil via Bulgaria made Borislav Milosevic's role one of the most important
in the Yugoslav foreign ministry.

Borislav's role came to the world's attention when Slobodan's son Marko made a
speedy getaway to Moscow following October's revolt, and his uncle helped him
secure a haven in the Russian capital.

The decision is the latest personnel change in Yugoslavia's government after
October's popular uprising overthrew Mr Milosevic's regime.

Borislav and his colleagues, who were strong Milosevic supporters, are expected
to return to the country by January 15, and their replacements appointed early
in the new year.

But Zoran Lilic, a former Milosevic associate and Yugoslav president in the
mid-1990s, says the ousted leader and his allies will continue to exercise power
in the foreign ministry through their Montenegrin partners, the Socialist
People's party, or SNP, which holds the balance of power in the federal
parliament.

The democratic alliance which spearheaded October's revolt failed to secure a
majority in the federal parliament and was forced to form a coalition with the
Montenegrins, who are Serbia's junior partners in the Yugoslav federation, to
defeat Mr Milosevic's Socialist party.

As a result, the SNP controls 22 out of 73 ambassadorial positions in some of
the most important missions, including Moscow, Baghdad, Caracas and Minsk - oil
exporters or places cited as stop-off points via which the former regime is
alleged to have siphoned state-owned assets to bank accounts held as far away as
China.

SNP members will also fill posts in Tokyo, Rome, Ankara and the United Nations
mission in Geneva.

Mr Lilic also said that Milan Milutinovic, Mr Milosevic's ally and fellow war
crimes indictee, remains president of Serbia, though the democratic alliance has
for the time being neutralised his power.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 22, 2000, Friday London Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE UK AND IRELAND: Lasmo falls into the arms of its Latin
lover: The oil group is swapping partners writeJames Blitz, Andrea Felsted
andDavid Buchan:

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and ANDREA FELSTED

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE UK AND IRELAND; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 781 words

Having languished unloved earlier this year, Lasmo, the UK oil company, suddenly
seems set to be carried off by its surprise Italian suitor, Eni, and to jilt its
recent US fiance, Amerada Hess.

Beyond spelling an end to the separate existence of one of Britain's last
middle-sized independent exploration and production companies, Eni's agreed
Pounds 2.7bn bid for Lasmo would appear to mark the Italian company's first
significant move in the world oil industry consolidation.

It also raises a question-mark over Amerada Hess. The US company said last night
it would not raise the Pounds 2.45bn bid it had agreed with Lasmo last month.

Paul Murray, finance director of Lasmo, was clear about the merits of the
Italian offer: "It is a better offer for shareholders. It is all- cash, and it
is at a higher level. From a board's point of view, it is a relatively
straightforward change of recommendation."

Vittorio Mincato, chief executive of Eni, was quick to dismiss fears he might
have overpaid for Lasmo.

Despite Eni being the world's sixth largest listed oil company, Mr Mincato said:
"Eni has never before undertaken an operation of this size."

But he said the 200p all-cash share offer - clearly topping Amerada Hess's mixed
cash/share bid - was based on the same "rigorous methods" Eni had used when it
paid Pounds 788m for the much smaller British-Borneo this year.

Under Mr Mincato, and his predecessor Franco Bernade, Eni has increasingly
focused on developing its core oil and gas sectors, shedding chemical and
property interests. But facing competitive pressure in its domestic gas market,
Eni is now embarking on oil acquisitions.

The Lasmo deal will strengthen Eni's position in the UK sector of the North Sea
and in North Africa, where Lasmo's operations in Algeria will complement Eni's
strong position in Libya and Egypt.

But while Lasmo's current production is weighted heavily - 56 per cent - towards
the North Sea, its reserves are far more widely spread, in particular in
Indonesia and Venezuela, where it operates the Dacion field.

A key to the deal's success will be whether Eni can exploit Venezuela's thick
and sulphurous oil, which resembles its own deposits in Italy. The deal will
also give Eni a foothold in Asian gas markets.

Revealing the pressure under which oil leaders now find themselves to prove they
can lift output under the spur of higher oil prices, Eni vaunts the fact that
with 200,000 barrels a day from Lasmo, it will be able to reach production of
1.6m bpd in 2003, ahead of the 1.5m bpd target it set last year.

In terms of cost synergies, the savings projected by Eni of Euros 80m (Pounds
48.7m) a year are less impressive than the Dollars 130m (Pounds 89m) targeted by
Amerada. It was unclear yesterday how much of these savings would come through
job losses.

While Eni's strategy has been clear, its tactics have been less so. Mr Mincato
said yesterday: "Lasmo has been in our sights for a long time." But his bankers
suggest it took the Amerada Hess bid to "crystallise" Eni's interest in Lasmo,
even though the failure of its share price to rise this year with the oil price,
like the rest of the industry, had shown Lasmo's vulnerability much earlier.

Finally, Eni approached Lasmo about two weeks ago. A number of oil companies are
understood to have considered competing against Amerada Hess for Lasmo.

Industry sources said Kerr McGee had thought about making an offer, while
Phillips and Anadarko also examined the possibility of bidding, as did Talisman
and Conoco, which thought the price was too high.

In the event, only Eni did, and at a price which its banking advisers calculated
would be beyond Amerada Hess's means to match.

One side-effect of the Eni deal is that Lasmo will incur a break-up fee of
Pounds 24m, or 1 per cent of the value of Amerada's offer, as well as about
Pounds 10m in advisory fees.

Mr Mincato said Eni would finance the purchase out of cash flow, disposals and a
Pounds 3bn line of credit offered by JP Morgan, which along with Lazards is
advising it. Schroder Salomon Smith Barney is advising Lasmo, and Goldman Sachs
advising Amerada Hess.

Amerada, meanwhile, is left to lick its wounds at losing a deal on which it had
worked for nearly a year. Analysts said its failure to clinch the deal could
make it vulnerable in the consolidation expected among second-tier US oil
companies.

The company said last night it was strong financially, and it would "be on the
alert for (acquisition) opportunities".

Some analysts suggested that the loser in the Lasmo deal might make a bid for
Enterprise, one of the few remaining UK independent oil companies.

LOAD-DATE: December 21, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 20, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 2

WORLD STOCK MARKETS: Production rumours boost oil

BYLINE: By JEFFREY BROWN - EDITOR, CHRIS DODD - EDITOR and MICHAEL MORGAN -
EDITOR

SECTION: WORLD STOCK MARKETS; Pg. 50

LENGTH: 1009 words

Overnight strength for leading US shares linked to speculation about Opec
production cuts sent oils to the top end of the FTSE 300 index performance
charts.

Concern about oil price slippage has led to a bout of weakness for the sector
over the past month. However, there was a clear upswing for sentiment yesterday
after Kuwait, Iran and Libya hinted at production cuts early in the new year.

Since the autumn, sector analysts have been predicting average oil prices for
2001 of Dollars 20 a barrel or less. These forecasts may shortly be seen as too
low. "It looks as if the suspected hard landing for the oil price has been put
on hold," said one leading analyst yesterday.

Royal Dutch jumped 4.5 per cent to Euros 65.78 in 13m shares traded. Total Fina
Elf gained 2.2 per cent to Euros 154.

Motor stocks gained ground, partly at the expense of DaimlerChrysler, which ran
foul of sector switching in the wake of another round of negative broker
comment.

Renault, which touched a high for the session of Euros 54.30, ended 6.7 per cent
better at Euros 54 in modest volume of 1.2m shares. Volkswagen added 3.8 per
cent at Euros 53.89 and BMW drove up 5.5 per cent at Euros 36.08.

Monday's downbeat trading statement sparked a predictable wave of broker
earnings downgrades for DaimlerChrysler. Deutsche Bank cut 2001 forecasts by 16
per cent while UBS Warburg savaged its estimates for 2001 by 35 per cent.

"We continue to prefer VW, Renault and Peugeot," says Deutsche Bank. UBS has put
Renault on its Europe-1 list saying that the market has "yet to fully
appreciate" the leverage to Renault's earnings from the accelerated turnround at
Japanese associate, Nissan.

Daimler blow

On DaimlerChrysler, UBS Warburg advises investors to avoid the stock on earnings
valuation and dividend grounds. It feels the dividend for 2000 is most likely
safe but at risk for 2001.

Belgian chemicals and pharmaceuticals group Solvay put on 3.7 per cent to Euros
56.60 on news of a deal with oil giant BP Amoco to boost their polymers
businesses in Europe and the US. The two businesses have a combined turnover of
Dollars 2.6bn.

Solvay rally took it clear of the near two-year low of Euros 52.75 reached last
Friday.

Tessenderlo gave up 3.6 per cent to Euros 31 as KBC Securities downgraded its
recommendation on the stock and cut its share price target to Euros 38 from
Euros 52.

"In spite of the good third-quarter results, we expect lower margins for the
fourth quarter, mainly in the PVC division," KBS said. "Margins are being
weighed down by both raw materials price increases and sales price decreases."

BASF slipped 1 per cent to Euros 47 as Basell, its newly formed chemcials joint
venture with the Royal Dutch/ Shell Group, said it was shutting down 500,000
tonnes of polypropylene capacity worldwide. It said the move, affecting plants
in Germany, the US and the UK, was temporary and was the result of a serious
supply/demand imbalance in the industry.

Bayer put on 1.7 per cent to Euros 54.70 as it unveiled plans for a joint
venture with US Regular world markets updates at www.ft.com/markets.
pharmaceuticals group Lyondell to build and operate a polyurethane factory in
the Netherlands.

Financials were surprisingly mixed as hopes grew for lower interest rates.

The German banks were hit by an early round of profit-taking, but by the close
Deutsche Bank had recovered to trade 1.9 per cent higher at Euros 87.88.
Dresdner edged up 0.1 per cent to Euros 45.41, Commerzbank was barely changed at
Euros 29.65 and Hypovereinsbank was 3.2 per cent lower at Euros 56.95. UBS
managed a 1 per cent gain to SFr264 and CS Group put on 1.8 per cent to Euros
309.

In Paris, BNP Paribas jumped 1.8 per cent to Euros 94.60, Credit Lyonnais
slipped 0.5 per cent to Euros 38.14 and Societe Generale was 1.1 per cent lower
at Euros 64.65.

Telecommunications companies were generally stronger, led by a rise of more than
4 per cent for Deutsche Telekom after it announced that it expected operating
profits at its offshoot T-Mobile to "multiply" next year and customers to grow
to 25m from the current 20m.

Telekom rises

Deutsche Telekom's share price rose from a closing low for the year of Euros
35.63 to about Euros 37 towards the end of the session.

France Telecom also made progress, gaining about 2 per cent to Euros 100.60
after announcing it was selling its 1.8 per cent stake in Deutsche Telekom,
closing a chapter on their strained relations. Last May they agreed to unwind
their crossholdings, which raised hopes among investors that the proceeds would
be used to ease France Telecom's financing needs for third-generation UMTS
mobile services.

But rival French operator Bouygues slipped 1.5 per cent. The construction and
telecoms group is seeking Euros 6bn in loans to finance its bid for a 3G
licence.

Portugal awarded four UMTS licences to the country's three existing mobile
companies and a consortium led by Portugal's electricity utility EDP. Telecel,
controlled by Vodafone, rose 2.6 per cent to Euros 12.90; Portugal Telecom,
which won through its offshoot TMN, rose 2.5 per cent to Euros 10.27, and Sonae,
which won a licence for its offshoot Optimus, slipped 0.8 per cent to Euros
1.32.

In the internet world, France's Wanadoo looked set to continue its spending
spree, with reports that it was to snap up the Dutch internet service provider
Freeler.nl from financial group ING. Wanadoo's share price fell 3.3 per cent to
Euros 8.89 and its rival Liberty Surf fell to a year low of Euros 8.90, down
almost 6 per cent amid renewed worries over its development costs.

Among media companies, Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer rose 1.1 per cent to Euros
28.31 in spite of paying a hefty premium for the US online legal information
provider Loislaw.com.

EADS, the pan-European aerospace company, rose 3.6 per cent to Euros 21.96 as
Airbus Industrie, of which it owns 80 per cent, launched production of its
555-seater superjumbo. Written and edited by Michael Morgan, Jeffrey Brown and
Chris Dodd

LOAD-DATE: December 19, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 19, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 2

COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE: Oil rises on call for output cutback

BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER BOWE and RUTH SULLIVAN

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 42

LENGTH: 240 words

Crude oil prices rallied after member states of Opec called for a cut in output
yesterday.

In London, the February Brent contract rose 35 cents to Dollars 26.24 at the
close, after reaching a high of Dollars 26.84 earlier in the session.

In New York, where severe cold weather is continuing to worry the market,
January Nymex rose sharply in late trading, up 89 cents to Dollars 29.76.

Markets firmed as Iran and Kuwait called for cuts of at least a million barrels
per day and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya added his weight. But Bill Richardson, US
energy secretary, said that the cuts would be "unhelpful".

Spot silver hovered around three-year lows as the market felt the loss of a
significant buyer and limited demand increases next year. London silver fixed at
457.50 cents, down from Friday's 461.00 cents.

Eastman Kodak, the US photographic group, cast a shadow over the silver market
last week after it said it had "fully hedged" its silver need for next year.

A spokesman for Kodak said the company has locked in its price for all of its
projected silver use next year. The actions mean that the estimated largest
single buyer of silver will be dramatically less active, if not possibly absent,
in the market next year.

Kodak's use of silver accounts for about 10 per cent of the global demand. The
photographic industry accounts for about 28 per cent of the estimated 877m
ounces of fabrication demand last year.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 8, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: Mixed gains for UN after decade of sanctions

BYLINE: By CAROLA HOYOS

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 727 words

The 10 years since the end of the cold war have become known as the Sanctions
Decade at the United Nations' headquarters in New York. Now the world's
diplomats are asking whether this weapon has been effective in enabling global
action, or is merely proof of UN weakness.

Having approved 12 sanctions regimes in 10 years - compared with only two
(against Rhodesia in 1966 and South Africa in 1977) during the first 45 years of
the UN's existence - member states are becoming wary of a policy tool that has
sometimes proven harmful to populations while failing to achieve its goal.

Comprehensive sanctions, such as those imposed on Iraq in 1990 and Haiti in
1993, have had devastating humanitarian effects and are unlikely to be imposed
again.

But so-called "smart" sanctions, which target "rogue" leaders and rebel groups
and aim to prevent civilian casualties, are more often than not proving
ineffective, compromising the credibility of the UN and risking a backlash
against one of the organisation's most important policy tools.

These concerns have become increasingly pervasive at the UN, and dominate
current negotiations over imposing an arms embargo against the Islamist Taliban
government in Afghanistan.

To date, years of sanctions against Iraq, Libya and Sudan have raised concern
among scholars and diplomats that UN measures can fall hostage to the national
policies of its five most powerful members - the US, the UK, France, Russia and
China. This worry has now led to a division among Security Council members over
whether to put a time limit on future sanctions regimes.

The UK and the US argue that imposing a deadline increases the risk that the
offender will wait out the sanctions rather than comply with the demands of the
international community.

France and others maintain that, in the absence of a time limit, the Security
Council risks extending sanctions indefinitely if a deadlock develops within the
council.

David Malone, president of the International Peace Academy, a think-tank that
closely follows UN issues, says: "My concern is that the Afghanistan (sanctions)
regime emerges from a coincidence of interest of the US, the Russian federation
and possibly China in combating Islamic fundamentalism. Most of the rhetoric
heard at the UN on targeting sanctions to avoid the humanitarian impact on
civilian populations has been ignored."

To counter criticism over the social impact, the Security Council last year
began to include humanitarian assessments within its resolutions. A working
group on sanctions will this month issue a separate report on devising "smart"
sanctions regimes.

Also slowing the passage of the Taliban resolution are recurring concerns that
the Security Council loses credibility when it imposes sanctions it cannot
enforce.

Many of the UN's other sanctions, including those affecting Angola, Sierra
Leone, Rwanda, Liberia and Sudan, failed to achieve their goals because of a
lack of enforcement.

"It is pointless for the UN to pretend to pass sanctions - and to only pretend
it is doing something - if it does not do anything," says Paul Heinbecker,
Canada's ambassador to the UN.

This year the Security Council took a large step towards enforcing its sanctions
against the Angolan rebel movement Unita by naming and shaming sanctions
violators. It was especially critical of the international diamond industry,
whose lack of oversight allowed Unita to arm itself through illicit diamond
sales.

The UN move added momentum to an international certification scheme aimed at
keeping conflict diamonds from Angola and war-torn Sierra Leone off the market.

In an effort to combat the ineffectiveness of unmonitored UN sanctions regimes,
Canada this month launched a campaign in the Security Council to create a
permanent monitoring group to keep track of violators.

Many diplomats and UN officials believe an arms embargo against Afghanistan's
Taliban regime could prove only moderately effective.

However, diplomats believe the symbolic benefits of multilateral sanctions and
the influence of the US and Russia will ensure adoption of the Taliban
resolution.

At a time when the world powers are increasingly unwilling to engage in UN
peacekeeping, the UN is now at risk of losing entirely its role in conflict
prevention if it cannot make the sanctions weapon work.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 6, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 1

US AND CANADA: US administration faces crisis over energy policy: Whoever gets
to inhabit the White House must face up to the fact that he will have to address
problems not just in oil but in the natural gas sectors, compounded by the
cut-off of Iraqi crude oil, reports Hillary Durgin:

BYLINE: By HILLARY DURGIN

SECTION: US AND CANADA; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 948 words

The alarm in world energy markets triggered by the halt in Iraqi crude oil
exports at the weekend is the latest sign that the new administration - whoever
leads it - will have to make US energy policy a top priority.

Even as the outcome of the presidential election has hung in the balance over
the last few weeks, energy industry officials have argued that the new president
will have to address problems not just in oil, but in the natural gas and power
sectors that reached crisis levels over the past year.

The cut-off of Iraqi crude could have serious repercussions for the US, the
world's largest oil consumer, particularly at a time of exceptionally low
inventories in the world oil markets and shortage in spare production capacity
within the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That situation could
easily reach crisis proportions for the US if other circumstances, ranging from
unrest among Nigerian oil workers to cold winter weather across the country,
affect supplies.

"For the new administration, this whole event is going to raise the question of
energy security and US energy policy to the very top of the docket," said Amy
Jaffe, senior energy analyst with the James A. Baker III Institute of Public
Policy at Rice University in Houston.

The Baker institute is working with the Council on Foreign Relations, a New
York-based think tank, to form a taskforce on US energy policy. "Whenever the
new president takes office, he is going to have to cope with whatever the
economic fallout is of this and the economic fallout is going to be huge," Ms
Jaffe predicted.

Opec has only between 1m to 2m barrels per day of spare production capacity -
far less than it has had during previous oil crises. Put in perspective, in the
winter of 1989, colder than normal weather boosted US oil demand by 1.5m barrels
per day.

For the first time in more than two decades, energy has become a focus of public
debate. As energy shortages and high prices stunned the public following a long
period of adequate supplies and cheap prices, these issues became a political
rallying point and figured prominently in theelections.

"There is a direct correlation between interest in energy policy and prices, and
energy prices are high, so interest in energy policy is high," said Robin West,
chairman of the Petroleum Finance Company, a Washington DC-based energy
consultant.

The position of energy secretary has generally been regarded as weak and has
often been occupied by someone with little knowledge of the industry. Whoever
becomes the next secretary must have a good understanding of the industry and be
able to explain the complexities of the regulatory structures and markets to
Congress, Mr West said.

Over the past two years, power shortages and skyrocketing prices have become
more commonplace. The underlying problem, industry executives say, is the lack
of a uniform, national policy to provide competitive, open access to the
nation's electricity power grid.

Current regulations, for example, tend to favour regional power authorities and
utilities in certain regions so that competitors have a harder time getting
power onto the grid and transmitting it. In 1998 that problem triggered, for
example, prices of Dollars 7,500 per megawatt-hour in Ohio compared with
neighbouring states where they were one-fortieth of that level.

Another problem is the difficulty of obtaining permits to site and build plants
in certain states. In California, for example, where shortages have become a
serious problem and the state imports 25 per cent of its power on days of peak
demand, 11,000 megawatts of new power has been proposed but can't get sited.

"The biggest energy policy issue we have is electricity," said Steven Kean,
executive vice-president and chief of staff at Houston-based Enron, the
country's largest merchant of natural gas and power. "Natural gas is not even
close. Oil is not even close." Enron is pushing for legislation to ensure open,
competitive access on the power grid and initiatives that would enable new power
generation capacity to be developed faster and easier.

Closely tied to the problem of power is that of natural gas, which is the
feedstock for virtually all new power generation capacity in the US. Prices,
which are now above Dollars 6 per thousand cubic feet, hit a record high this
week - three times the price of a year ago - as the energy industry has been
unable to keep pace with demand.

Many in the industry are concerned about how the US will be able to meet future
power demands unless more gas is developed. Yet while companies are busy
drilling, they have been hard pressed to increase production.

Companies such as UK-based BP Amoco and Calgary-based Nexen, which have gas
reserves in Alaska and Canada, are hoping that the high prices will make
development and transport of those reserves profitable, but such projects are
probably five years away.

At the top of the energy industry's agenda in accessing more oil and gas are
efforts to reopen more federal lands to drilling. In addition, they would like
to have equal access to oil reserves overseas in places such as Iran and Libya
where sanctions prevent US companies from doing business.

The industry knows that forging a new energy policy will not be easy. But it
realises it must push it to the top of the new administration's agenda.

"It will be a priority," said Chuck Watson, chairman and chief executive officer
of Houston-based Dynegy, a leading energy merchant with large holdings in the
natural gas and power sectors. "It has to happen, if they don't want Dollars 5
natural gas and Dollars 40 crude and Dollars 50 power."

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 4, 2000, Monday London Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE INTERNATIONAL: Region's violence sends Arab exchanges lower
EMERGING MARKETS MANY AREAS STAGNANT DESPITE RISING OIL PRICES:

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 34

LENGTH: 742 words

DATELINE: CAIRO

Arab stock markets have moved firmly to the exotic end of the emerging market
spectrum over recent years and, given the violence in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, the poor performance is not surprising. Lebanon is down 18 per cent on
the year while Jordan has fallen 20 per cent.

But Arab markets further away from Israel and the Palestinian territories have
been enjoying 20 months of rising oil prices and the prospect of fiscal
surpluses.

It is not surprising, therefore, that there are some bright spots - among them,
Saudi Arabia, where the all-share index is up 12 per cent on the year following
a 42 per cent gain in 1999.

"We don't have dotcoms - it's all bricks and mortar, so I guess we've been doing
OK," says Abdullailah Mukred, of Saudi American Bank in Riyadh.

"There's a very strong correlation between the price of oil and the economy
generally, and the stock market definitely reflects that. There's going to be a
budget surplus this year for the first time in 16 or 17 years. Volume is up and
earnings are up. The market went up last year, yet the market multiple is
cheaper than it was a year and a half ago," he adds.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, things are not so rosy. Oman, which is open to foreign
investors, received a fillip after the government pumped in OR50m (Dollars
129.8m) this month.

But the reason for the injection was scarcely encouraging. Following a bubble in
the Muscat Securities Market in 1997 and a resulting correction, a number of
smaller brokers and investors were in trouble. The market is still down more
than 16 per cent this year.

More mysteriously, Kuwait, a large oil exporter, has been stagnant. The Kuwaiti
Stock Exchange is not open to foreigners but, in spite of firm oil prices and
the payment of Gulf war reparations through the United Nations, the market index
has risen just 1.5 per cent on the year.

While that masks great polarity between the blue-chips in Kuwait and the
less-well-regarded stocks, the main problem is that Kuwaiti domestic investors
have been more interested in New York and the Nasdaq exchange.

"The Kuwaitis are great momentum investors," says one analyst.

Nonetheless, the depression in Kuwait and Oman is surprising.

"The correlation appears to have broken," says James Graham-Maw of Blakeney, the
emerging market specialists, of the link between oil and local stock market
performance.

"The lag effect that has been enjoyed by these markets has got even longer. I
think governments - Saudi Arabia perhaps being the exception - have shown
themselves very unwilling to spend this windfall of higher oil prices," he says.

Outside the Gulf but still far away from Israel and the West Bank is the small
Tunisian market, capitalised at roughly Dollars 3bn.

Although Tunisia is not a hydrocarbon exporter, the economy has been growing at
6 per cent a year amid a cautious economic reform programme.

Yet, even here, the bank-dominated stock market has only risen by 19 per cent
this year.

Brokers attribute the relatively meagre returns to another contagion - not that
of proximity to Israel and the Palestinian territories, but to being sandwiched
being Libya and Algeria.

Meanwhile, Morocco, an economy that is more directly affected by the performance
of Europe than the rest of the Middle East, has been languishing.

The Casablanca bourse was down by 13 per cent last week compared with the
beginning of the year. The market is also expensive by regional standards,
trading on roughly 13 times expected earnings in 2000.

According to Framlington Asset Management, which runs the Maghreb Fund investing
in Morocco and Tunisia, the largely agricultural Moroccan economy - and by
extension the Casablanca bourse - have been hit by a series of droughts.

The consensus is that once the rains return, the market will pick up. Investors
are also hopeful that King Muhammed will institute further reform.

Then there is Egypt, of which great things were hoped in the mid-1990s. This
year investors were deterred by an overvalued Egyptian pound.

The currency has been allowed to depreciate by 15 per cent since the summer, but
the manner in which it has been done - without any policy announcement - has
continued to deter investors.

"They've suffered death by a thousand cuts. Uncertainty is what markets don't
like, and (the Egyptian authorities) have done it in the most uncertain way
possible," says Jonathan Asante of Framlington.

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 2, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

OFF CENTRE: Will the Russian bear roar again?: Charles Clover traces the growing
influence of the right theories of Alexander Dugin

BYLINE: By CHARLES CLOVER

SECTION: OFF CENTRE; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 1440 words

It's the little things that betray Alexander Dugin as a formidable mastermind of
global empire. Maybe it's the pointy beard. Maybe it's the habit of trilling his
r's a little too heavily. Maybe it's that mellifluous "very clever, Mr Bond"
tone in his voice.

Maybe it's the maps he has lying around his Moscow office, showing the Eurasian
land-mass cluttered with an assortment of arrows, wedges, cross-hatching,
clamps, pincers and circles.

And maybe it's because he can't resist divulging his master plan: "In principle,
Eurasia and our space, the heartland, remain the staging area of a new
anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution."

Only a few years ago, Dugin was considered a crackpot. He still is. But today he
is a "very well-read and prolific crackpot with a lot of influence", according
to Dmitri Trenin, defence analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, the mainstream
think-tank.

Indeed, after a decade of cross-pollination between rightwing intellectuals and
Russia's military and political elite, Dugin's pet philo-sophy, an obscure
theory called geopolitics, has advanced to the outskirts of mainstream thought
in defence and foreign policy circles in Russia.

Geopolitics prophesies an eternal world conflict between land and sea, and
hence, Dugin believes, the US and Russia.

His 1997 book, The Basics of Geopolitics, advocated a rebirth of the Soviet
Union ("or the Russian Empire, or third Rome, or whatever you want to call it,"
he says), and cementing a continental bloc of anti-American Eurasian states that
would oust US influence from the Eurasian land-mass.

According to his book: "The new Eurasian empire will be constructed on the
fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism,
strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to
dominate us. This common civilisational impulse will be the basis of a political
and strategic union."

And lately, Dugin has a spring in his step as events seem to back up his ideas.

Russia's president Vladimir Putin, for example, has a travel itinerary that
looks like some of the maps in Dugin's book.

One trip was to visit Moscow's one-time cold war ally India, where he endorsed
India's nuclear programme. India has been subject to US sanctions after it
tested five nuclear weapons in 1998.

Putin recently said Russia was ready for "a new phase" in relations with another
former cold war ally, Syria. Russia and China have lately been trying to outdo
each other in calling for a Sino-Soviet partnership with echoes of the old cold
war bloc.

Over the summer, Putin pursued overtures with North Korea, Libya and Iraq, a
sort of who's who of international pariahs.

Maybe "empire" is too strong a word, Dugin admits, but nevertheless, he says:
"Already, our recommendations are being implemented at very high levels. I think
as time goes by you will see that more and more of our analysis is being used."

While the Kremlin insists its decisions are based on "pragmatism" rather than
obscure geopolitical theories, it concedes that its foreign policy has undergone
a momentous shift: a newly published set of foreign policy guidelines put out by
the Russian ministry of foreign affairs decries a "strengthening tendency
towards the formation of a unipolar world under financial and military
domination by the United States", and calls for a "multipolar world order". It
describes Russia's most important strength as its "geopolitical position as the
largest Eurasian state".

Dugin is quick to take part of the credit for these new guidelines, and at first
glance it might seem presumptuous. But when one examines the man and his
associates, the objections fade.

Take General-Lieutenant Nikolai Klokotov (ret), who held the chair of strategy
at Russia's Military Academy of the General Staff from 1988 to 1996. He is
listed as a consultant for The Basics of Geopolitics.

Dugin has also been appointed a key adviser to Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of the
state Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

And while geopolitical theory was banned during Soviet times for its links to
Nazism, Russia's communist party has practically adopted the ideas for its own.
Gennady Zyuganov, communist party chairman, has published a primer on
geopolitics called Geography of Victory.

Russia's main military diplomat, General Leonid Ivashov, the head of the
international department at Russia's Ministry of Defence, and the mastermind of
Russia's takeover of the Pristina airport in Kosovo last year, is one of the
converts.

"The science of geopolitics has flourished in the post-communist period, and
this is a natural, healthy, objective response to circumstances," he says.

Ivashov's book on the subject, Russia and the World in the new Millennium,
borrows heavily from Dugin's work. He writes: "The experience of geopolitical
confrontation between Russia and the west is not limited to the seven decades of
the Soviet Union, but has a centuries-long tradition.

"Russia cannot exist outside of its essence as an empire, by its geographical
situation, historical path and fate of the state."

Says Ivashov: "The first democratic government of Russia looked at the US as
something like a donor, or as a strategic partner. This is a huge misconception.
Look at the actions behind the facade of public statements. Read (Henry)
Kissinger, read (Zbigniew) Brzezinski, you come to the conclusion that, yes in
some ways we are partners, but really we are geopolitical rivals."

Dugin, by his own account, became interested in geopolitical theories in the
1980s, after graduating from the Moscow Aviation Institute. At the time,
geopolitical works were banned in the Soviet Union because of the theory's links
to Nazism, so Dugin was considered a dissident. He read voraciously and taught
himself several languages.

In 1991, he joined the staff of the extremist newspaper Dyen, published by
Aleksander Prokhanov, known at the time as the "nightingale of the general
staff" for his close ties with Russia's top generals.

Soon after the failed military putsch in August 1991, Dugin left Dyen and
created his own magazine, Elementy, devoted to the philosophy of Europe's new
right. On its editorial board, were Alain de Benoist and Robert Steukers, both
noted new right intellectuals.

In 1992, a Moscow summit organised by Dugin and held at the headquarters of
Russia's military general staff brought together Russia's generals and
representatives of the new right movement, including de Benoist and Steukers.

The subject of discussion was the formation of an anti-US "continental bloc" of
Russia, Germany and France.

Dugin was "obviously very close to the military men", said de Benoist,
interviewed recently about the conference. He said he declined further
invitations after that conference, conceding, "we were very far apart
conceptually".

But the idea of a continental bloc - a Russian strategic alliance with European
and Asian states - has since then attracted a number of Russian intellectuals,
strategists and politicians.

Starting in the mid-1990s, Boris Yeltsin, Russia's then president, began
promoting the idea of a Moscow-Berlin-Paris "axis".

And senior Moscow foreign policy figures, beginning with former prime minister
Yevgeny Primakov, have devoted themselves to the celebration of Count Aleksander
Gorchakov, Russia's legendary 19th century foreign minister who, following
Russia's disastrous defeat in the Crimean war, brought Russia back to greatness
through an alliance with a newly united Germany.

The parallel with today has not been lost, as Putin travelled to Berlin in June
and described such a united Germany as "Russia's leading partner in Europe and
the world".

The overtures to Germany and more recently France echo the desire of many in the
Russian establishment to use a Franco-German-Russian partnership to drive a
wedge between the US and Europe, a project Germany and France show little desire
to assist - so far.

But that doesn't stop Dugin speculating about a "Eurasian axis" of Russia,
Germany, Iran and Japan.

"Of course, this will take some time," he concedes, and proposes to start first
with a much more manageable Eurasian axis of Russia, India and China (according
to his book it is well nigh impossible to have China and Japan in the same
Eurasian axis - you have to choose one or the other).

But, he says: "I am convinced that with Putin as president, the processes of
consolidating our geopolitical space is accelerating, and it is already seen in
Europe and Asia. Everything depends on whether it works. That is the 21st
century gamble."

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November 30, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: Judges reject Libyan's plea NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By JOHN MASON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 255 words

Judges reject Libyan's plea

One of two Libyans accused of causing the Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people
were killed has failed in his attempt to have the case against him dropped.

The judges at the Scottish court in the Netherlands yesterday rejected arguments
by lawyers for Lamen Khalifa Fhimah that there was insufficient evidence for his
prosecution to continue.

Mr Fhimah is accused, with Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megahi, of the murders
of 259 passengers and crew of Pan Am flight 103 and 11 Lockerbie residents on
December 21 1988.

Mr Fhimah's lawyer, Richard Keen QC, had argued there was no evidence to link
him with key allegations that he had been involved in smuggling a bomb on board
an aircraft at Malta's Luqa airport.

If there had been a conspiracy, then he had been used as a "tool", he said.

However, presiding judge Lord Sutherland said: "We have come to the view that
having regard, in particular, to certain entries in the second accused's diary,
his association with the first accused with whom he is charged with acting in
concert, and, crucially, the evidence of Majid Giaka, we are unable to be
satisfied that there is no case to answer."

Majid Giaka, a former Libyan agent who defected to the CIA, has told the court
that Fhimah had shown him a stash of explosives in his desk drawer at Libyan
Arab Airlines' Malta office before the bombing.

He also said he saw Fhimah handle a brown suitcase of the type forensic experts
believe was used to contain the bomb. John Mason

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November 29, 2000, Wednesday Surveys GHA1 20001129S202.114

SURVEY - GHANA: Charismatic leader bows out after 20 years

BYLINE: By ANTONY GOLDMAN

SECTION: SURVEY - GHANA; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 1000 words

From army radical to elected president, once friend to Libya but more recently
host to the likes of President Clinton and Queen Elizabeth, a man who lambasted
ministers for driving Peugeots before developing a taste for distinctly unmodest
Jaguar sports cars, Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, 53, the aggressive
nationalist with a Scottish father, who has dominated Ghanaian politics for a
generation, is an enigma.

If Rawlings stands down as scheduled early next year, he will be unique in
Africa for twice handing over to an elected successor. Just 32 when he first
seized power, his first stint in office was notable both for its violence -
three former military rulers were executed on the beach - and, at three months,
its brevity.

His second, since the end of 1981, represents Ghana's longest period of
sustained political stability and economic growth since independence.

The Rawlings legacy, however, is likely to prove mixed and controversial. "He
has been our most authoritarian leader, yet he is the one who leaves us with our
most liberal constitution," says Yao Graham, a former associate and political
commentator. "He has flitted from the left to the right. Sometimes hypocritical
and violent, he looks set to leave according to the rules, even though he has no
clear idea of what he will do next."

Early flirtations with radical socialism have given way to an enduring
relationship with the World Bank. Military rule and peoples committees have been
replaced by a conventional form of liberal democracy. Diatribes against
corruption now sit uneasily with evidence of widespread but unpunished
corruption and cronyism in high-profile state institutions, such as the Social
Security and National Insurance Trust.

Although he demanded "nothing less than a revolution, something that will
transform the social and economic order of this country" in his inaugural
broadcast," Rawlings' supporters nevertheless prefer to argue the sharp change
in political and economic direction that has subsequently followed was
enlightened pragmatism.

Moreover, in hitherto neglected rural areas, he is celebrated for a development
process that has brought roads, power and water. Levels of absolute poverty have
fallen, while health and education indicators have improved. Support is strong
among farmers who remember the days of price controls, punitive taxation and
mass smuggling in the 1970s.

Even in the cities, where the current economic crisis has hit most hard, his
charismatic leadership has an enduring appeal. When city officials in Accra
began a clean-up operation in advance of President Bill Clinton's visit in 1998,
he ordered them to remove fencing around open drains, insisting that the US
president must see Ghana as it was.

In his early days, he would carry half-smoked cigarettes behind his ear in a
public show of thrift and poverty. He remains today a dynamic speaker. At the
end of a visit to Scotland earlier this year, where he was so hounded by the
media over reports of alleged human rights abuses that only a handful of members
of the Scottish Parliament attended his speech, he abandoned his official text
to launch a tirade against the evils of tabloid journalism. On the campaign
trail, his subordinates and rivals appear dull and remote by comparison.

It is that unpredictable, sometimes violent energy that contemporaries believe
has helped preserve the image of political stability over the past two decades.
"We were always afraid of what he might do next," says a former government
minister, "but we were always pretty sure that whatever it was, he would carry
the military with him."

Indeed, Rawlings has proved so powerful a personality that there are some doubts
over the capacity and resilience of institutions to adapt to his departure. The
president has consistently argued that the constitution should be revised, for
example complaining earlier this month that it had taken an unreasonable amount
of time to clear his wife's name following allegations of cocaine smuggling.

"We have come a long way," the president told supporters recently. "I am tired.
I am grey. But at least I know one thing. I have fought for the truth. I have
fought for your truth. Don't disappoint me, don't disappoint yourselves, by
introducing deceit and lies back into the politics of this nation."

If it sounded like a threat, the effect, in a period of deteriorating economic
conditions and an untested leadership, may not have been altogether
unintentional. Although more well-rounded than in his earlier days and beset by
unspecified health problems, Rawlings after 20 years in power is still younger
than most world leaders and will remain the life chairman of the ruling National
Democratic Congress, reportedly with powers to attend cabinet meetings, should
the party win in December.

Quiet retirement seems an unlikely option. His controversial style, though,
makes the prospect of slipping into the role of elder statesman somewhat
unlikely, especially with his enemies hinting that they may use his departure
from office to initiate legal challenges over alleged abuses. Any display of
conspicuous consumption - the president enjoys flying and fast cars - is likely
to generate a hostile response from an increasingly lively press, especially
given his earlier condemnation of the extravagance of his predecessors.

The persecution he faced after he first left office is widely held up to have
been as much the cause of the 1981 coup as Rawlings' stated desire to build a
new order that "must be anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and must aim at
instituting a popular democracy".

If such concerns were again to tempt the president back to the political centre
stage, by common consent the task would be far harder now than 20 years ago. His
supporters believe such confidence reflects a consolidation of democracy and
self-belief in civil society that they hold up as the greatest legacy of the
Rawlings era.

Antony Goldman

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November 28, 2000, Tuesday USA Edition 1

OBSERVER: Gadaffi's way AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 147 words

Gadaffi's way

Some people (mainly Jimmy Carter) have called for elder statesmen Gerald Ford
and Jimmy Carter to step in and end the legal wrangling over which candidate
really won the Florida vote.

But another person has come up with a solution for the whole ugly impasse, and
since he was in office before either of the ex-presidents above, perhaps his
idea warrants a little respect.

Muammer Gadaffi, who has been in charge of Libya for the last 30 years, reckons
that in order to avoid a "civil war in America", George W. Bush and Al Gore
should job-share the presidency.

In any case, Gadaffi argues: "there is no difference between Bush and Gore". But
not everyone may be of the opinion that the two candidates might co-exist in
perfect harmony in the Oval Office.

And as for Muammer himself, when was the last time he offered to share his job
with anyone else?

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November 23, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

MIDDLE EAST: Egyptian diplomacy leaves a bitter taste

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: MIDDLE EAST; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 498 words

DATELINE: CAIRO

There was no mistaking the disillusion in Egypt as William Cohen, the USdefence
secretary, left Cairo for Israel yesterday. He had urged Egypt, one of the most
consistent proponents of the peace process over the past 20 years, to reconsider
the withdrawal of its ambassador from Tel Aviv.

"There is always a moment where a decision has to be taken. We all feel angry -
officials as well as people," said Amr Mousa, the foreign minister, after
announcing the measures on Tuesday in protest at Israel's use of force in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. "We haven't seen any result from the communications
which we have undertaken. When they (the Israelis) have something meaningful to
say we are ready to listen."

The so-called al-Aqsa intifada puts the Egyptian leadership in an awkward
position. Having backed negotiation as the way to resolve the conflict, the
violence leaves the regime open to domestic and Arab criticism of spinelessness
and even, in more heated moments, of collusion. Cairo has argued, however, for
moderation and for a considered escalation of diplomatic measures as long as the
violence continues.

This consistent advocacy of diplomacy comes at a price. Anwar Sadat, then
president, was assassinated in 1981 by Muslim extremists because he signed the
Camp David treaty. Egypt was ostracised by its Arab neighbours for more than a
decade because of its recognition of Israel.

More recently Hosni Mubarak, the current president, organised an emergency
meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh in October in an effort to broker a ceasefire between
the Israeli army and Palestinian protesters. At a subsequent summit of Arab
states in Cairo he resisted pressures to break diplomatic relations on the
grounds of keeping lines of communication open.

Iraq, Yemen and Libya and some Palestinians castigated the summit resolution as
weak and ineffectual.

Now the Egyptians have had enough and the first step in a diplomatic war has
been taken. The next measures could include the expulsion of the Israeli
ambassador from Cairo, followed by a complete rupture in diplomatic relations.

Cairo's relationship with Israel has been far from easy from the moment
diplomatic links were opened after the 1979 Camp David treaty.

While Israelis have visited Egypt, and in particular the resorts of the Sinai
peninsula, in growing numbers since 1980, the relationship has not been
reciprocated.

Trade has largely been limited to the sale of Egyptian gas. Several Israeli
textile and cotton experts work in Egypt but it has always been difficult for
Egyptians to obtain access to Israel.

Yesterday's al-Ahram newspaper, which reflects official thinking, said: "Egypt
is not a neutral player or intermediary in the peace process between the Arabs
and Israel, it is essentially an Arab player. When Egypt recalls its ambassador
to Israel it is sending a message to the world, and especially Israel, that the
aggressor must pay the price of his actions." Editorial Comment, Page 24

LOAD-DATE: November 22, 2000

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November 20, 2000, Monday Surveys BAH1

SURVEY - BAHRAIN: Alba keeps the flag flying

BYLINE: By ROBIN ALLEN

SECTION: SURVEY - BAHRAIN; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 590 words

It seems fitting that Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), the country's second oldest
industry which started production in Bahrain's independence year from Britain in
1971, should start the millennium with two expansion schemes. This should enable
it to regain the lead as the larger of the two Gulf smelters - the other is
Dubai Aluminium -and to keep its position as the largest single employer of
Bahraini nationals.

At the beginning of October, the US's IFC Kaiser completed its feasibility study
on Alba's proposed Dollars lbn expansion plan, to raise production capacity by
50 per cent to 750,000 tonnes a year of primary aluminium. The expansion, part
of a dual programme costing Dollars 1 .4bn, would involve adding a fifth potline
to Alba's production capacity.

It would also enable Alba to add 250MW power output to the existing 1,500MW,
while still providing 275MW to the government during peak summer periods. After
Alba's expansion is completed in 2004, the two

Gulf smelters will have a combined capacity of i .25m tonnes a year (tpa). From
early next year, Alba also expects to be producing 450,000 tpa of calcined
petroleum coke, more than enough to substitute the 250,000 tpa of green coke it
has up to now imported from the US and Argentina. The surplus will be exported.
In addition, it will benefit from a new 40,000 cubic metre a day (cmd)
desalination plant.

"Most smelters," says Abdul Karim Salimi, Alba's chief executive, with evident
satisfaction, "buy their power. But those like us, who produce their own
on-site, have a choice of additional power or water. We have both." These
expansions are milestones in the life of 59-year old Mr Salimi. He has already
notched up a few firsts during his 45-year career. In 1955, he was the first
Bahraini to be appointed to a managerial position under the British-directed
Bahrain Petroleum company (Bapco)'s training scheme.

After six years, Bapco selected him above his peers for higher studies in
England, and again promoted him after his retum. Then, in 1969, the year that
Muammer Gadaffi seized power from the Libyan monarchy, he became a manager of
Esso Standard in Libya.

Mr Salimi was catapulted to become general manager of BP's Libyan operations.
His Libyan career lasted five years. He joined Alba in 1974, and moved up the
corporate ladder to become chief executive in 1997.

Alba is not without its sceptics in the private sector. First, they point out,
Bahraini nationals cost more than expatriates, and only a nationalised ir dustry
headed by a minister would make Bahrainisation a matter of pride at the expense
of profitability.

Second, they say, one look at Alba's ownership structure explains why
thefeasibility study has taken twice as long - one year -as originally expected,
and why the expansion is expected to take three to four years to complete.

Private sector participation in Alba is confined to the 3 per cent owned by
Breton Investments, a subsidiary of the German group, Eckart. The Bahraini
government owns 77 per cent, with the balance held by Saudi Arabia's Public
Investment Fund, and the principal Saudi board member, Hashim Yamani, the
industry and electricity minister.

Shareholder approval for Alba's expansion had been expected at a meeting of the
board on November 8. But this was not forthcoming. However, on November 12, the
cabinet approved the expansion "in principle" and instructed the industry
ministry to put financial and debt structyring in place. But no financial
adviser has yet been appointed.

LOAD-DATE: November 22, 2000

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November 15, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: Mediterranean voyage becalmed by age-old distrust:
Euro-Med partners are failing to make headway because of the Middle East crisis
and the reluctance to enter bilateral accords, says Roula Khalaf:

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 795 words

Five years after the European Union launched an ambitious plan to promote a
peaceful and prosperous Mediterranean zone, EU foreign ministers meet their 12
Mediterranean counterparts today in Marseilles to explore ways of
re-invigorating a faltering process.

Despite the merits of the vision articulated in the November 1995 Barcelona
conference that started the Euro-Med partnership, the process has been severely
undermined by crisis in the Middle East as well as the slow implementation of
plans for regional economic integration.

"People talk more to each other now but in terms of concrete progress on
Barcelona there's little to report," said a western official. "It can only go as
far as the slowest ship and that is the Middle East peace process."

True, the Euro-Med partnership is the only multilateral forum today where Arabs
and Israelis sit around the same table, even if to exchange accusations.

But with Palestinians and Israelis now locked in the worst violence in a decade,
Syria and Lebanon - two Euro-Med participants that take the toughest line
against Israel - have threatened to boycott today's meetings. Libya, which
attends as an observer, announced that it would not participate.

Importantly, plans to sign a charter for peace and security, which was to be the
highlight of the summit, have been scrapped as no Arab country will enter into a
security partnership with Israel at this time.

The Barcelona process has been marred by problems that go beyond the peace
process. The partnership is underpinned by bilateral association accords to
create a free-trade Mediterranean zone in 2010. A Euros 4.4bn (Pounds 2.8bn)
financial package of assistance to support economic transition was agreed in
1995 for five years and another will be unveiled in Marseilles.

But concluding agreements has proved a challenge. Cyprus, Malta and Turkey are
accession candidates for the EU. Since 1995 Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Israel and
the Palestinian Authority have signed association agreements.

Negotiations with Egypt were completed several months ago but Cairo has yet to
put its signature on the deal. Lebanon, Syria and Algeria are still in various
stages of negotiations.

Some Mediterranean countries have welcomed the economic discipline imposed by
the accords, but others lament their apparent economic bias in favour of the EU.
While the free-trade zone will open Mediterranean markets to EU industrial
products, agriculture - the main export of some of the developing countries
involved - will be excluded from free access into the EU.

Recognising this frustration, Chris Patten, the EU commissioner for external
relations, has indicated that part of the attempts to improve the Euro-Med
partnership must include "an increased sense of shared solidarity" on
agriculture.

Hopes that agreements would lead to a flood of foreign investment have failed to
materialise. The EU's poorer partners are receiving a mere 2 per cent of
European foreign direct investment (FDI) and only 1 per cent of worldwide FDI.

Disbursement of financial assistance committed by the

EU also has been dismal. The European Commission says a mere 26 per cent of
total commitments have been paid. It has promised improvement in payment
mechanisms.

EU officials argue that failure to attract foreign investment indicates the need
for more rapid economic transformation in the developing countries of the
southern Mediterranean, including labour and judicial reform.

They also stress that a key requirement to attract foreign capital and build a
successful Mediterranean free-trade zone is boosting intra-regional trade. It
now accounts for a mere 5 per cent of the 12 EU partners' total trade flows.

"Only an increased horizontal exchange of goods, capital and human resources
will create markets large enough to attract significant foreign direct
investment, which in turn are indispensable for sustainable economic growth,"
said the Commission.

"So far, structural change in the 12 Mediterranean partners remains
unsatisfactory, thus stifling the multilateral exchange of goods, financial
assets and services."

On the political front, too, the Barcelona process has had serious shortcomings.
Human rights organisations have criticised the EU's failure to use the financial
leverage inherent in association accords to press for an enforcement of the
clause committing Mediterranean partners to respect human rights.

"Five years after the start of the Barcelona process it is high time to move on
from solemn, but as yet empty, declarations to a serious and tangible
partnership for the protection of human dignity and fundamental rights on all
shores of the Mediterranean," says Amnesty International, the London-based human
rights group.

LOAD-DATE: November 14, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 14, 2000, Tuesday Surveys SWI1

SURVEY - SWITZERLAND: And the money keeps rolling in SWISS FIDUCIARY DEPOSITS by
Norman Peagam: After a slide in the early 1990s, the volume of these funds
topped SFr500bn this year, 60 per cent denominated in dollars

BYLINE: By NORMAN PEAGRAM

SECTION: SURVEY - SWITZERLAND; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 818 words

Someone has been making an awful lot of money in Kazakhstan recently. Swiss bank
deposits from the central Asian republic have ballooned from less than Dollars
1m in 1992 to Dollars 125m in 1998 and Dollars 530m at the end of last year.

That is equivalent to more than a quarter of the entire money supply of the
former Soviet republic, where the average monthly wage is about Dollars 150. The
rapid growth of Swiss bank accounts belonging to wealthy Kazakhs is reported in
a forthcoming study by Swissmoney Research*.

Using publicly available data, the report tracks the flow of funds from more
than 180 countries and territories to Switzerland between 1990 and 1999,
examines where the money is reinvested and shows which banks are most active in
gathering these funds.

The study focuses on so-called fiduciary transactions, which mainly consist of
large, short-term cash deposits placed with Swiss banks by foreigners. Unlike
conventional deposits, they are then transferred to banks outside Switzerland in
order to avoid the 35 per cent Swiss withholding tax on interest. Moreover, they
are placed abroad in the name of the Swiss bank, enabling clients to maintain
anonymity. Swiss banks charge a small fee for providing this service.

Fiduciary transactions represent only a fraction of the total wealth managed by
Swiss banks. There are currently about SFr530bn (Dollars 290bn) of such
transactions outstanding, compared with SFr3,500bn of client securities in
custody at the end of last year. In addition, the ultimate origin of much of
this cash remains unknown because up to a third of it comes from offshore tax
havens, providing an additional layer of secrecy.

Nevertheless, although fragmentary and incomplete, the available data does shed
light on the global nature of the business.

The volume of fiduciary deposits grew steadily during the 1980s, reaching
SFr300bn in 1990, according to statistics compiled by the Swiss National Bank.
It then fell by more than 20 per cent in the early 1990s, a time of economic
recession in the industrialised world, before resuming its upward climb in 1996
and surpassing SFr500bn for the first time earlier this year.

About 60 per cent of the total is denominated in US dollars, 22 per cent in
euros and 7 per cent in Swiss francs. By region, about 30 per cent of the
deposits come from western Europe (excluding Switzerland), 23 per cent from the
Caribbean and 15 per cent from the Middle East, followed by Latin America (8 per
cent), Asia (6 per cent), Africa (4 per cent) and North America (3 per cent).

The countries of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are also
fast-growing sources of funds. Italy was the largest single market during most
of the 1990s, with SFr17.5bn of deposits at the end of last year. But it was
overtaken in 1998 by the British West Indies (which probably refers mainly to
the British Virgin Islands), through which the volume of deposits has rocketed
from SFr1bn in 1990 to SFr30bn last December. Almost every country in the world
is represented, including several considered outlaw states by the US government
such as Iran (with SFr813m on deposit at the end of last year), Iraq (SFr95m),
Libya (SFr536m), Yugoslavia (SFr180m), North Korea (SFr17m) and Cuba (SFr7m)

Clients in these countries may regard anonymous deposits placed via neutral
Switzerland as the best way to invest their liquid foreign exchange and avoid
potential US seizure or sanction. Although relatively small, the flow of cash
from some of the world's least affluent countries is striking. Last year, for
instance, the largest percentage growth came from places such as Vietnam,
Eritrea, Albania, Sierra Leone, Benin and Zambia.

Meanwhile, deposits from larger developing countries continue to expand, notably
from Nigeria (up 17 per cent last year to SFr675m), the Philippines (up 36 per
cent to SFr543m), Kenya (up 65 per cent to SFr771m) and Indonesia (up 95 per
cent to SFr952m).

To avoid Swiss withholding tax, fiduciary deposits are transferred abroad and
almost 90 per cent of the funds are placed with banks in just five European
countries: the UK, including Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man (27 per cent),
Luxembourg (18 per cent), Belgium (15 per cent), the Netherlands (15 per cent)
and France (11 per cent).

If British overseas territories are included, the UK share rises to 30 per cent.
UBS is by far the largest player in this low-margin, high-volume business, with
SFr62bn outstanding at the end of last year, followed by Credit Suisse, with
SFr37bn and Citibank, with SFr12bn.

The field is dominated by leading international banks with global branch
networks and banks with strong regional ties, especially to the Middle East.

* Cash in Transit: Fiduciary Deposits in Switzerland 1990-1999. December 2000.
Pounds 125/Dollars 175. Swissmoney Research, PO Box 508, Crawley, RH10 2XW,
England

LOAD-DATE: November 13, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 13, 2000, Monday Surveys SEN1

SURVEY - SENEGAL: All change for a fresh style of government: INTERVIEW:
PRESIDENT ABDOULAYE WADE by Nim Caswell: The new president, elected president in
March, discusses his plans for fostering changes in the economy, the
constitution and, most importantly, in public attitudes

BYLINE: By NIM CASWELL and ABDOULAYE WADE

SECTION: SURVEY - SENEGAL; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 1527 words

Q: You've been in office for seven months, having campaigned for 26 years on the
theme of change; so what changes have you made, and are you happy with progress
so far? A: Iam very happy with these first seven months at the helm.

The most important change to have taken place is in people's minds. They're
ready to make an effort, not because the president says so or because they're
paid to do it, but because they know they must. Won't they simply fall back into
the old habits? Not at all. We are building a way out of the ghetto.

There's been a complete change in the style of relations between the individual
and the state. The president no longer travels with a long cortege. There's a
completely new style of presidency.

At an institutional level, there are big changes under way, too. A new
constitution will be put to a referendum in January. The new National Assembly
will be elected before April 1, when the old Assembly's mandate expires. What
can you say about the new constitution? I don't know a country in the world that
has taken such care over the drafting of a constitution. A commission of legal
and constitutional specialists and judges drew up a first draft, amended by the
prime minister and the full cabinet. Then, all the registered political parties
got a chance to comment. The process was exceptionally democratic. And the
content. ...? At the moment, we have a presidential regime; the prime minister
does not feature. So I'm going to institutionalise the role of prime minister,
with clearly defined areas of responsibility. The president in future won't be
able to dissolve the assembly on the first vote of no confidence - only if it
happens twice.

The Senate will be abolished. It's a shame, because I was the first to propose
that Senegal should have an upper house in 1974. But in practice it is useless.
It simply goes over the same ground as the National Assembly, and is packed with
Socialist Party candidates who failed to get themselves elected as MPs. The
Economic and Social Council is going, too. What other changes are envisaged?
We're going to make the judiciary more independent. That's the main thing. But
we also envisage a clause that will bring forward elections at every level,
including not only the National Assembly but regional, town and rural councils.
With effect from the next elections, we will have five years of peace. Five
years to work. Does that mean you anticipate your own party having a majority in
the Assembly by then? Whether of my own party, or if necessary a coalition.
Would it be fair to suggest you find yourself closer, ideologically, to some
wings of the Socialist Party than to your present coalition partners? It would
be difficult to say that. Politics in Senegal is complicated, full of nuances.
Take the parties that describe themselves as being of the left. It's true that
ideologically we're far apart. But in practice, we have always fought together
against the Socialists. I've been in prison with all of their leaders - several
times! Abdoulaye Bathily, Amath Dansoko, Landing Savane. But opposition and
government aren't the same thing...? True, but it is something that unites us...
a certain conception of the state. Also, certain of the old parties have
detached themselves from their Marxist origins. And the Socialist Party itself,
being descended from the single ruling party instituted by Leopold Senghor (the
country's first post-independence president) embraces a huge range of opinion.
There's been a realignment of political thought in Senegal. Turning to the
situation in Casamance, do you expect to meet Abbe Diamacoune Senghor, leader of
the separatist MFDC, soon? I have been in contact with him and the MFDC since
I've been here. But you mustn't mix contact and discussion with negotiation.
Independence for Casamance is not negotiable.

We're in the process of setting up a system of reconciliation. As a first step,
we have arranged help for those displaced by the troubles. Now we're moving into
the second phase, under which the Gambian government will help us to repatriate
all the Casamancais living in their territory. A large part of the solution lies
in relations with neighbouring countries... The president of Guinea-Bissau has
said he would never tolerate attacks on Senegal from his territory. Better
still, he has agreed that the United Nations should send a force. The president
of Gambia has decided to expel the independentistes from his territory. They've
even started. Now we're going to get down to discussions. I think that in a very
short time we will be able to make progress. Then there's Mauritania and the
project known as the vallees fossiles... We've repudiated the name vallees
fossiles. But as far as the Senegal river valley is concerned, we are bringing
our policies up to date, taking into account the entirety of Senegal's water
resources.

During the wet season the surplus water floods villages and even threatens to
sweep away St Louis. So we have another project - nothing to do with the vallees
fossiles -so that in case of flood the water is channelled inside Senegal.

I told the president of Mauritania he was welcome to divert that water into
Mauritania. He was delighted! So we have no problem with Mauritania. So will the
development of the river valley continue as planned? None of the three members
of the Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du fleuve Senegal, - Senegal,
Mauritania and Mali - has come anywhere near realising the irrigated area
allowed under the treaty. We've only used 16 per cent of our allocation. All we
want to do is to fulfil the potential of the area.

Agriculture is at the heart of my thinking. We can grow lots of things here the
European market needs. Gherkins, for instance. And there's a market for fruits
like strawberries and melons, endive, green beans... So we're talking about
horticulture with a high value ... Exactly. Once we've mastered the production
side, we need to look at exports. The airport at St Louis will be expanded for
freight aircraft to serve these markets. We've had offers from Italy, Morocco
and Spain to help us finance storage facilities. I also want to improve
transport linking St Louis to its surrounding district. You say 'we', but won't
most fall to the private sector? Of course. We will provide the infrastructure,
but everything else is for private companies. We have Senegalese who are asking
for hectares and hectares of land for market gardening. I imagine development of
large industries. We envisage a large factory to produce flour from maize,
manioc, potatoes and wheat, all destined for export. By processing our produce,
we add value.

Political change in Senegal is going to translate into economic change. I am an
economic liberal and I believe in the free market. That's why we're planning to
call on the market for structural investment in areas such as roads, the new
toll motorways, the new airport, a new town near Dakar, and an African business
centre.

For the first time, we're going to do without the World Bank, and build viable
projects using entirely private capital. That's the challenge I've set. Senegal
has been under the tutelage of the World Bank and the IMF for more than 20
years... I'm not saying we can do without them altogether, but I want to make a
start and I think we'll be among the first to do so. That means using the
projects we've talked about, and linking them to the real dynamism of the
sectors that offer the best potential for growth via the infrastructural
developments I've outlined.

I've got another project to develop the ports, in Dakar, Ziguinchor, Kaolack,
Fatick and St Louis. Two private groups want to develop the port at St Louis.
We're going to construct several oil refineries. That's to serve the surrounding
region? To serve the region, but with Libya we want to build giant storage
facilities. Iran wants to develop petro-chemicals in Senegal. We're going to
propose that Nigeria builds a refinery in Senegal, though we haven't spoken to
them yet. Private groups say they're ready to be involved in such projects. Will
the population really be ready to wait? People trust me because they know I'm
working on their behalf. You can see it daily on radio and TV. What are the
findings so far of the audit of state enterprises? ? Huge deficits, figures
bigger than you can possibly imagine. Sotrac, the bus company, lost CFA Fr30bn;
the Post Office, CFA Fr17-18 bn; the port of Dakar... even the national lottery,
Lonase. I don't know if there's anywhere else in the world where the lottery
runs at a loss! CFA Fr4bn in the red! There are more, the national railways . .
. Are these deficits due to misuse of funds? Of course. Will the individuals
concerned be brought to justice? Absolutely. We are a law-abiding state, so we
don't want to accuse people without legal foundation. We suspect lots of things,
but we wanted to carry out our enquiries correctly.

In the old days, the Socialist Party and its election campaigns were financed by
the state companies. They couldn't touch those people. But today, we will get
the proof and put it before a judge.

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November 2, 2000, Thursday USA Edition 1

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: Iran's oilfield priority boost for Japan OIL EXPLORATION
AGREEMENT AIMS TO PUT PRESSURE ON US OVER SANCTIONS AND PREVENT EUROPEAN
STRANGLEHOLD:

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE and BAYAN RAHMAN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 483 words

DATELINE: TEHRAN and TOKYO

Iran yesterday granted Japan first negotiating rights over part of its Azadegan
oil field, in a move that will put pressure on the US to give up its unilateral
sanctions and prevent a handful of European companies gaining a stranglehold in
Iran in the absence of US and Asian competition.

Japan Petroleum Exploration and Japanese-owned Indonesia Petroleum will
negotiate exclusively with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) on developing a
section of the oilfield in Iran's south-western Khuzestan province.

The agreement was announced during a visit to Japan by Mohammad Khatami, Iran's
president, and Bijan Zanganeh, its oil minister. It reflects Japan's desire to
forge stronger ties with Iran ahead of the expiry next year of the US Iran-Libya
Sanctions Act.

It is also a boost for Japan's aim of securing its supply of oil, particularly
after the recent loss of a Saudi Arabian concession.

Iranian analysts said a powerful faction within the state-owned NIOC had argued
that Asian competition was needed, even if Japan was not the perfect partner and
would need to form an international consortium to develop the field. "If the US
lifts its embargo, then the Iranians would immediately start negotiating with
the US majors," said one analyst in Tehran.

Under an executive order imposed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, US oil
companies were barred from doing business with Iran.

The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act allows the president to impose secondary sanctions
on non-US companies investing in Iran's energy sector. So far, however, Mr
Clinton has issued waivers to companies, such as Total and Shell, and analysts
say Japan is no longer concerned about possible US retaliation.

"The act is US law and not international or Japanese law. From a legal point of
view, Japanese companies don't have to follow it," said Takashi Honjo, an
official from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

It is unclear what kind of contract Iran will negotiate with Japan, and Tehran
appears open to suggestions.

Iran currently employs the "buy-back" formula, under which companies are paid in
oil equivalent to a pre-agreed value for developing its fields. Iran's
constitution forbids production-sharing agreements.

The short-term buy-backs are not popular with the leading oil companies, as they
provide little long-term incentive. Tehran is currently reviewing its buy-back
system and may offer Japan a longer-term deal, possibly in the form of a joint
venture with Iranian partners that would amount to a form of production-sharing
agreement.

Conoco, the US oil giant, has helped Iran analyse seismic data on Azadegan -
described by one oil executive in Tehran as "the jewel in the crown" - on the
understanding it would be given priority in developing the field, once sanctions
are lifted.

It was now clear, analysts said, that Iran was prepared to wait no longer.

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November 1, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS: Investors buoyed as Seoul refuses company
rescues

BYLINE: By JOHN BURTON

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 449 words

DATELINE: SEOUL

South Korea yesterday was facing the prospect of a new round of big corporate
bankruptcies as the government appeared determined to shut failing companies.

Hyundai Engineering & Construction, the parent company of the Hyundai group, was
threatened with insolvency, while Dong-ah Construction, which has large
contracts in Libya, was placed in court receivership after banks cut lending.

Meanwhile, Daewoo Motor, the bankrupt carmaker, proposed sacking a fifth of its
workforce, cutting wages and closing overseas units in a bid to persuade
creditors to grant it emergency loans.

The Seoul stock market reacted favourably to signs that the government was
pressing ahead with corporate restructuring, rising nearly 2 per cent to close
at 514.48 points.

Investors have criticised the government for forcing ailing nationalised banks
to prop up companies with little chance of recovery, out of fears of rising
unemployment.

Banks are reviewing nearly 300 weak companies and are expected to select some
for liquidation within the next week. But the markets are worried the government
might intervene to save the biggest troubled companies, including Hyundai and
Dong-ah.

Confidence in the government's corporate reform plans was bolstered when
creditors allowed Hyundai Construction to default on maturing debts. Korea's
biggest construction company narrowly avoided insolvency yesterday when it paid
Won22.4bn (Pounds 13.5m) in debts it failed to honour on Monday and promised to
pay Won26.4bn in debts due yesterday. Trading in Hyundai Construction shares was
temporarily suspended yesterday.

A Korean company is declared bankrupt when it fails to pay maturing debts for
two consecutive days. But Hyundai could soon face a new liquidity crisis as more
debt falls due.

The Hyundai default came as creditors decided to cut lending and refused debt
rescheduling for Dong-ah. The company will apply for court receivership along
with its subsidiary, Korea Express, the nation's largest delivery company, which
guaranteed much of Dong-ah's debt.

Analysts had expected that the government might try to save Dong-ah for foreign
policy reasons since it is the main contractor in Libya's large waterway
project.

Dong-ah was placed under a work-out programme by creditors in September 1998 but
failed to recover due to the depressed domestic construction market.

Another company resisting closure, Ssangyong Cement, Korea's biggest cement
producer, announced plans to sell a 29 per cent stake to Taiheiyo Cement of
Japan for Dollars 360bn and said it was negotiating the sale of a stake in
Ssangyong Information & Communications to foreign investors. Daewoo to cut
staff, Page 35

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November 1, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Probe holds up Lockerbie trial

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 35 words

Probe holds up Lockerbie trial

The Lockerbie trial was adjourned for urgent investigations into new evidence
about the bomb that destroyed Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in
1988. UK, Page 13

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October 31, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY: Japan in talks to conclude Iran deal OIL CONCESSION:

BYLINE: By BAYAN RAHMAN

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 357 words

DATELINE: TOKYO

Japan has strong expectat-ions of winning first negotiating rights to develop
Iran's Azadegan oilfield, believed to be one of the world's largest undeveloped
fields.

Japanese government officials confirmed yesterday that negotiations were
reaching their final stage.

The project is likely to be discussed by Yoshiro Mori, Japan's prime minister,
and President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, who begins a four-day visit to Japan
today. Mr Khatami is accompanied on his visit by Bejan Zanganeh, Iran's oil
minister. It is unclear whether a deal will be signed during the visit.

The oilfield, in the south-western province of Khuzestan, is estimated to have
reserves of 26bn barrels and expected to produce up to 400,000 barrels a day,
equivalent to 10 per cent of Iran's current daily output.

Japan is anxious not to be left behind by US and European companies entering the
Iranian market prior to the expiry next year of the US Iran-Libya sanctions law.

But both the Japanese government and companies are treading carefully for fear
of upsetting the US, their chief ally and main trade partner.

Japan must also balance its relationship with Iran with its ties to Saudi
Arabia. In February a Japanese oil refiner, Arabian Oil, lost a four-decade-old
Saudi Arabian concession after Japan refused to fund a Saudi railway project.

Japan has been searching for a new oil concession and the Azadegan field could
fill that gap.

However, Japan has so far been reluctant to agree to Iranian demands that it
finance a railway project, partly for fear of upsetting Saudi Arabia.

International companies will scrutinise the nature of an agreement on the
Azadegan field. Iran currently uses a buy-back system to skirt around a
constitutional ban on product-sharing agreements with foreign companies.

An agreement between Japan and Iran could further rile US companies such as
Conoco, which analysed seismic data from the field and have campaigned against
US sanctions on Iran.

Japanese media said a consortium of trading houses, oil refiners and private and
semi-governmental oil companies would be involved in the Azadegan project.

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October 27, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: A good ol' boy's world: If George W Bush becomes US
president, he will cut European commitments. But less than some fear, argues
Lionel Barber:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 1009 words

The candidate is an outsider who puts domestic policy first. He smiles a lot and
talks like a good ol' boy. He may know the name of Bulgaria's prime minister;
then again, he may not.

George W Bush, the Republican candidate for US president, is closing in on the
White House. Europe is nervous. The policy elite prefers continuity in the shape
of vice-president Al Gore.

Mr Bush is easily caricatured as a foreign policy neophyte whose twin sins are
timidity and ignorance. He has not inherited his father's familiarity with
foreign affairs. As the governor of Texas, he looks south to Mexico rather than
east to Europe.

Part of the whispering campaign in European foreign ministries against Bush jnr
is intellectual snobbery. Fevered imaginations suggest that a future Bush
administration would retreat behind a missile shield to guard against rogue
states such as Iran, Libya and North Korea and leave the allies to fend for
themselves.

A more sober but no less unsettling view is that a future President Bush plans
to scale back US military involvement overseas, notably in Europe.

Last weekend, Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's senior national security adviser,
hardened earlier hints about burden-sharing. She said that Mr Bush, if elected,
planned to tell Nato that the US would no longer take part in peacekeeping in
the Balkans.

"The governor is talking about a new division of labour," Ms Rice told the New
York Times, "the United States is the only power that can handle a showdown in
the Gulf, mount the kind of force that is needed to protect Saudi Arabia and
deter a crisis in the Taiwan straits. And extended peacekeeping detracts from
our readiness from these kinds of global missions."

The reaction in Europe bordered on consternation. Nato diplomats fretted that Ms
Rice had scrapped the cardinal rule of "all for one and one for all" that
underpins Nato's integrated military command. Others pointed out that European
troops account for more than 80 per cent of the 65,000-strong Nato force
deployed in the Balkans.

Ms Rice, a racing certainty to be the national security adviser in a Bush II
administration, probably underestimated how deeply her remarks would resonate
and how easily her nuances would be overlooked.

For example, she conceded that the US would need to consult thoroughly about a
revision of Nato tasks. The next administration was not planning "precipitous"
actions in the Balkans. Nor was there any question of a wholesale withdrawal of
US forces from the continent.

What is missing in the US campaign debate is any sense of the European con
tribution to security on the continent. Or, indeed, the sense that Europe's
aspirations to be a genuine power on the world stage - Tony Blair recently spoke
of superpower - are growing.

Few in Europe, not even the French, question the role of the Nato alliance as
the ultimate guarantor of security on the continent and the counterweight to
Russia. But the EU is committed to assume a bigger role in crisis management
through a separate European Sec-urity and Defence Identity.

Some Americans still see ESDI as a dagger pointed at the heart of Nato but more
sensible professionals recognise that a credible ESDI will lead to a more
equitable transatlantic relationship. The caveat is that French-inspired moves
to create a defence capability independent of Nato must be kept in check.

The big unknown is whether EU governments can muster the political will to
increase defence spending to the level where it can create a credible
60,000-strong rapid reaction force, to be dispatched to conflict zones in which
Nato and US forces decline to be involved.

So far, neither the Americans nor the Europeans have defined the new terms of
engagement for a Europe-only force. It remains subject to numerous imponderables
- not least whether the key European powers, Britain, France and Germany, can
find common ground on the desirability of intervention.

In each of the three Balkan wars of the past decade, the Europeans found it
difficult to reach a common view on military intervention. Paralysis ensued.
This left the door open to a more activist US approach. The Clinton
administration pushed Nato beyond its traditional boundaries into a
peace-keeping mission in the Balkans.

Mr Bush is signalling that he is likely to be more circumspect in his use of US
power. He denounces the Clinton-Gore deployments in Haiti and Somalia as failed
attempts at "nation- building". An adviser says the candidate is much more
sceptical about intervening in "tea-cup" wars that do not immediately threaten
US security.

By contrast, Mr Gore says that US foreign policy should be defined as much by
values as by self-interest. He preaches "forward engagement" to tackle new
security threats such as the spread of Aids and environmental degradation.

This kind of moral language appeals to centre-left governments in Europe.
Remember Mr Blair's expansive foreign policy speech in Chicago last year, during
the Kosovo conflict, in which humanitarianism was seen as the best rationale for
putting soldiers in the firing line.

Such arguments carry little weight in the Bush camp. At a Chatham House seminar,
a former senior Bush administration official ridiculed such rhetoric as social
work dressed up as foreign policy. Ms Rice puts it more succinctly: US soldiers
are not in the Balkans to help schoolchildren cross the road.

So the first few months of a Republican administration would be rocky for
transatlantic relations. But Europeans have no reason to panic. Mr Bush has
plenty of seasoned advisers in his entourage. His hands as commander-in-chief
would also be tied, like his predecessors', by Congress.

Those who worry about a change at the top should also remember another good ol'
boy from the south who said the only thing that counted was the economy, stupid.
His name was Bill Clinton and he made plenty of mistakes in his first few years.
Now the mere mention of his name is enough to turn Europe's leaders misty-eyed.

lionel.barber@ft.com

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 21, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: MIDDLE EAST: Mubarak checks rage with pragmatism: The Egyptian
leader needs to give support to the Palestinian cause without alienating his
western sponsors, says Roula Khalaf

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: MIDDLE EAST; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 840 words

Outside Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, the centre of Islamic learning, worshippers
faced riot police yesterday, deployed in force to prevent unrest as Arab leaders
started streaming into the Egyptian capital for the first Arab summit in four
years.

"With our soul, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Palestine," they chanted.
In a message to the Arab heads of state, they asked: "Where are the Arab
armies?"

The awakening of Egyptian public opinion, enraged by the Israeli response to the
Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza, has put enormous pressure on
President Hosni Mubarak, who called the two-day summit. Demands that he break
relations with Israel, more than 20 years after Cairo signed the first
Arab-Israeli peace deal, have been mounting. So far, however, Mr Mubarak - one
of the last of the old-guard Arab leaders on the political stage - has refused
to be driven by popular emotions. With his poor and overpopulated country the
second largest recipient of US aid, he has been playing a balancing act.

His dilemma has been to reconcile popular demands and backing for the
Palestinians with the need to revive the Middle East peace process and not
alienate the west. In an interview on the pan-Arab Orbit television station, Mr
Mubarak dismissed talk of war as unrealistic and started preparing public
opinion for moderate results from the summit.

"We must use reason and sound judgment," he said. "Issuing emotional decisions
is the most dangerous move for a nation, and we are looking for our people's
interests." He also defended Egypt's holding of the Sharm-el-Sheikh summit,
where President Bill Clinton helped to broker a deal that takes the first steps
towards ending the three weeks of bloodshed.

Insisting that the unrest in the West Bank and Gaza had reached a critical stage
requiring immediate action, he rejected accusations that Sharm el-Sheikh was
held to deflate the Arab summit and prevent leaders from taking a stance against
Israel.

The Egyptian president's studied moderation is likely to set the tone of this
week-end's summit. Arab foreign ministers said it would back Yassir Arafat, the
Palestinian leader, and his demands for sovereignty over occupied Arab East
Jerusalem and Muslim holy sites but also support the revival of peace
negotiations. If leaders decide that Arab states should freeze normalisation
with Israel as a means of exercising pressure on the Jewish state, Egypt and
Jordan would be exempt.

Analysts said that a principal aim of Arab leaders, including Mr Mubarak, was to
build on the Sharm el-Sheikh conference and end the Israeli-Palestinian crisis,
which has claimed more than 100 lives.

"The Palestinian uprising is becoming dangerous and getting out of control. If
it continues and protests against Israel and the US continue in the Arab world,
they will turn against the governments," said Salim Nassar, a Middle East
analyst. But Cairo, which has been central in helping Mr Arafat during
negotiations, also wants to use the summit to form a basis for peace
negotiations, out of which Mr Arafat will emerge with a stronger hand and the US
broker with a better understanding of Arab attachment to East Jerusalem.

"We are committed to the peace process but to a correct process, not one in
which there is movement without substance," Amr Moussa, the Egyptian foreign
minister, told the FT. "We need to take a common stance to correct the peace
process and to stand firm against Israeli violations."

That the summit is taking place at all - after four years of failing to get Arab
leaders together - may be considered an achievement in an Arab world that has
been torn by divisions over Iraq since the 1990-1991 Gulf war.

"The summit could create problems, in that the expectations of the people are
beyond what it can deliver. But its effects need not be only negative," said
Mohammad Sid-Ahmad, a leading Egyptian commentator.

"But the very fact that the leaders are meeting and projecting the image that
the issue of Jerusalem concerns all the Arabs is not a bad thing: it sends a
message to the US," he said.

However limited the summit's results may be, the image of the region's leaders
uniting over the Palestinian cause and Jerusalem may also help those Arab
governments that are pro-peace but largely authoritarian placate radical states
such as Iraq and Libya and, perhaps more important, their domestic Islamist
opposition.

"The situation is very difficult and Israelis are not giving people the choice
to be moderate," said an Arab foreign minister. "Israel is giving the upper hand
to the radicals."

With Egypt in the midst of a three-stage parliamentary election, the government
will be loath to see the anti-Israeli demonstrations it has permitted gradually
turn into anti-government protests.

The state's National Democratic party will win most of the seats in parliament,
but the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which is fielding candidates as independents,
complained this week of government harassment of campaign officials.

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October 21, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: MIDDLE EAST: Gadaffi flies into fray at a confusing tangent

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: MIDDLE EAST; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 453 words

Arabs are used to outra-geous behaviour from Libya's Muammer Gadaffi. Yet none
of the region's rulers expected him to go as far as revealing on television the
proposed Egyptian draft of the final declaration of this weekend's Arab summit
in Cairo, called to forge a common stance in support of Palestinians.

But this week, during an interview with the pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite news
channel, Col Gadaffi waved a copy of the draft and read parts of it, denouncing
the language as a sell-out.

"I challenge the Arab leaders to take steps that would satisfy the angry Arab
masses," he told viewers.

"All the Arab leaders will do in this summit is stop the popular uprising in
Palestine."

The Libyan leader turned his back on the Arab world years ago when governments
refused to follow African states in breaking the now suspended United Nations
air embargo on Tripoli. But Palestinians should not expect much help from the
colonel himself - he is now no longer a backer of rebel movements, though a
French court announced yesterday that he could be prosecuted for alleged
involvement in the blowing-up of a French airliner over Niger in 1989.

He is preoccupied with less violent thoughts these days. As clashes flared
between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops recently, Col Gadaffi,
accompanied by 1,400 of his officials, was on a rare tour of Arab countries to
present a "strategic proposal" for Arab unity with Africa.

In meetings with officials, trade unions, businessmen, and intellectuals in
Jordan and Syria, he produced a large map, showing a world divided into 10
"spaces", each with its own colour. The only white spot was that of the Arab
states.

The new world, he said, no longer believed in ethnicity or religion. It was
about geography, trade and business. The Arabs were lost, he added, because they
belong to no geographical grouping. "The Arabs must wake up from their long
sleep and be part of the African space," he said.

He went on to make bizarre proposals about occupied Arab East Jerusalem and its
holy sites - the issue at the centre of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

"What's all the fuss about East Jerusalem and the mosque? How will we run out of
mosques to pray in? We have 1m mosques," he told the Jordanian parliament. "The
struggle today is about land and mass. Let Israel have East Jerusalem and give
us back all of Palestine."

His Arab hosts were both amused and confused.

"Some parts of what he says make sense but the whole thing is incomprehensible,"
said an official.

"He knows there's a new world order but he confuses all the facts and gets to
the wrong conclusion. Why would we join Africa, a continent tearing itself apart
with conflict?"

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 17, 2000, Tuesday Surveys BBK1

SURVEY - BUSINESS BOOKS: Reflections on a period of profound change: The third
volume of BP's corporate history vividly evokes the scale of adjustment in the
oil industry and depth of political and economic development in these difficult
years

BYLINE: By MAX WILKINSON

SECTION: SURVEY - BUSINESS BOOKS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 991 words

The recent tripling of world oil prices to a peak of more than Dollars 34 per
barrel hassent shivers of recollection through the western world. Could it be
that the history of the 1960s and 1970s is about to be repeated? For now, as
then, the developed economies are in a period of steady expansion which is
sucking oil from Gulf states almost as fast as they can produce it. Could it be
that a sudden disruption of supply will again send prices to panic levels and
stop the western economies in their tracks?

Most experts answer "no", partly because oil producers and consumers have
learned lessons from the 1970s, and partly because the world of oil has changed.
James Bamberg's exciting and well-written history of BP shows how profound those
changes have been. This is the third of what will presumably be four parts and
covers a period of radical development in the industry. It therefore ranges far
wider than the story of one company and offers fascinating insights into the
political and economic developments of the period.

It starts in an almost forgotten world, when Britain still regarded itself as a
world power, and state-controlled BP was considered an important arm of its
influence. The company's wealth was based almost entirely on vast oil reserves
discovered in Persia (Iran since 1935) from concessions gained with the help of
Britain's imperial might. It was a world in which public school boys took nearly
all the top jobs.

It was also a world of the white man's enclave, where tennis and tea were more
highly prized than fraternising with the natives. Indeed, the people whose land
gushed with such enormous wealth were mostly employed only in menial capacities.
At that time BP owned about a quarter of the world's known oil reserves.

The presumption that western companies had perfect freedom to exploit oil
resources in foreign lands received an unpleasant jolt in 1951, when Muhammad
Mussadiq, Iran's new prime minister, nationalised BP's assets, and the company's
2,500 staff were sent home. This is one of several exciting stories in the book.

There were huge implications for BP, as it turned outwards to look for oil in
other regions. But it was not yet the turning point for the industry. The seven
major companies had been operating in a kind of club, helping each other out
with supplies. So with assistance from its sisters, BP was able to adjust
surprisingly smoothly to the loss of control over most of its crude supply.

Co-operation among the majors was put to a much tougher test in 1956, during the
Suez crisis. Bamberg does an excellent job in recounting the arrogance and
stupidity that led to the Franco-British invasion of Egypt, and he gives a good
account of the behind-the-scenes negotiations between western governments and
oil companies for ameliorating the supply crisis.

Like an early heart attack, this should have been a warning to the west about
what might happen if the oil stopped pumping. But despite efforts - with BP in
the fore - to find new oil in the North Sea, Alaska and elsewhere, the warning
was insufficiently heeded. Oil prices were held at low levels throughout the
1960s, even when it was evident the rapid increase in consumption and switch
from coal to oil would eventually create a crisis of supply.

When the crunch came, after Muammar Qaddafi's seizure of power in Libya in 1969,
the oil companies presented a (nearly) solid phalanx in trying to resist price
rises, first from Dollars 2.23 per barrel to Dollars 2.53, and then rapidly to
Dollars 3.45 by March 1971.

It was clear by then that the oil companies had completely lost control of the
market, so great was the demand in the west and its dependence on uninterrupted
supply. So the rise above Dollars 11.5 during the Yom Kippur War, and the oil
embargo in 1973, was not entirely surprising. Even without a war, enough Arab
states wanted economic revenge on the west, while the more moderate states were
happy to turn the tables after years of exploitation.

Bamberg tells this tale in a wryly objective tone. He remarks, for example, that
the top negotiators for the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries were
"easily a match for the oil companies in education and expertise", with a
glittering array of qualifications from US universities.

By contrast, Sir Eric Drake, BP's domineering chairman, appears rather a sad
figure trying obstinately to stand against the tide. Sir Eric had his moment of
glory, however, when Edward Heath, the British prime minister, asked BP to
renege on international contracts to favour the home country. Sir Eric refused.
Heath was outraged. But as Bamberg discovered from the archives, BP did in fact
secretly bend the rules to help its political masters.

The tangled relationship between BP and the British government, its majority
shareholder, forms an interesting thread throughout this narrative. In 1955, for
example, R.A. Butler, then chancellor, made strenuous efforts to prevent the
company from announcing a big increase in dividends - that would have run
counter to the Tory government's quaint policy of voluntary dividend restraint.

Butler lost his battle against BP's redoubtable Lord Strathalmond, and wrote in
private: "It is impossible to go along with these stooges and I must review our
association with this unpatriotic organisation." In public, however, he said:
"It has not been our practice to interfere in the commercial management of the
company."

For such insights, for its historical breadth and for a first-rate account of
the politics and internal development of company strategy, this book should
appeal to a much wider readership than its bulk and title might suggest. Whether
it also helps to predict the next oil crisis must be left to the reader.

Max Wilkinson

Order British Petroleum and Global Oil at a special price of Pounds 76/Pounds 24
(free UK p&p) from +44 (0)20 8324 5511 or www.ftbookshop.com

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 14, 2000, Saturday USA Edition 2

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Rubin telling the same old story

BYLINE: By PETER DUNSMORE

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 156 words

From Mr Peter Dunsmore.

Sir, James P. Rubin was given considerable space in your columns over two
weekends. I cannot think why. Of all the biased, blinkered accounts of the war
in Yugoslavia his must rank with the worst.

Once again we are told the old lie: "Air strikes were the only option we had."
After Libya, Sudan and Afghanistan, perhaps Americans have come to regard
bombing people as an acceptable substitute for thought. Mr Rubin attributes base
motives to the Italians for opposing those strikes.

He has not one word of regret for the effects on the ground of Madeleine
Albright's "moral crusade" - a trail of death, wanton destruction and pollution,
with Kosovo now a gangster state.

In conclusion, Mr Rubin admits to a "shining moment of pride" at his country's
achievements. I can only suppose that, like his president, he has lost all sense
of shame.

Peter Dunsmore, 35 Holland Park, London W11 3TA, UK

LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 13, 2000, Friday USA Edition 1

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: Little joy in Cuba as US partially eases
trading rules

BYLINE: By PASCAL FLETCHER

SECTION: LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 468 words

DATELINE: HAVANA

The historic move by the US Congress this week to modify the trade embargo
against Cuba and allow US food and medicine sales to the communist-ruled island
has generated more frustration than celebration so far.

The bill, passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, exempts food and
medicine from sanctions against countries such as Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and
North Korea.

But in Cuba's case the legislation, which President Clinton has said he will
sign into law after Senate approval, expected within days, bars US public or
private financing for the sales. It also codifies into law rules, most already
existing, that restrict and regulate travel by US citizens to Cuba.

In public, President Fidel Castro's government has scornfully dismissed the bill
as a publicity stunt aimed at trying to convince the world that the embargo is
being relaxed. Cuba refused to trade under these restrictive conditions.

The limited legislation and the answering Cuban rejection were a slap in the
face for the scores of US farmers and businessmen who have trekked to Havana in
the past two years to reconnoitre the previously forbidden Cuban market.

But at least one group of US visitors was trying to persuade their sceptical
Cuban hosts this week that the food sales initiative, while limited, bedevilled
by politics and entangled with obstacles, could still be made to work.

"We are trying to keep things moving, trying to find a practical way to get
trade going," said Alan Tracy, president of US Wheat Associates, a
Washington-based organisation that promotes US wheat exports.

"The American wheat farmer is just as frustrated and disappointed as the Cubans
are," said Henry Jo Von Tungeln, the group's vice-chairman. "But Congress has
given us this opportunity and we are going to try to develop it," he added.

The US visitors did not see the block on US financing as an insurmountable
obstacle. They argued that third-party foreign financing could be arranged.

Extra funding costs would be more than compensated for by the cheaper rate of
shipping from nearby US ports instead of from

Europe, Canada or Asia.

Remaining restrictions on US-Cuba shipping links were a problem but Mr Tracy
said they could be tested. "It was clearly Congress's intention that trade be
allowed," he said.

Also in Havana this week was a delegation led by Tommy Irvin, the veteran
Georgia state agriculture commissioner. The Georgia visitors, who included
leading US poultry exporters, said they would be ready to sell to Cuba today if
this was possible.

Mr Tracy said he found some Cuban officials receptive to the idea of trying to
make food sales work. "My impression was that if this legislation turns out to
be practically workable, they wouldn't stand in the way of shipments," he said.

LOAD-DATE: October 12, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 5, 2000, Thursday London Edition 3

WORLD NEWS: TRADE: US companies move quietly into Iranian markets: Washington
stands accused of hypocrisy in its trade sanctions policy. Guy Dinmore and
Edward Alden report

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN and GUY DINMORE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: TRADE; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 959 words

US companies are quietly strengthening their presence in Iran, circumventing US
sanctions in the expectation that improved relations between the two countries
will lead to a lifting of Washington's unilateral trade embargo within a year.

In a calculated gamble that Washington will not raise objections, the companies
have found ways to use foreign subsidiaries or Iranian middle-men to sell to
Iran without technically violating the sanctions regime.

But European businesses exhibiting at Tehran's trade fair this week accused
Washington of double standards, saying the US is turning a blind eye towards its
own companies dealing with Iran, while harassing foreign groups operating in the
Iranian market when they seek business in the US.

The double-standard is indicative of Washington's current ambivalence towards
Iran. The Clinton administration has signaled repeatedly that it would like to
see warmer relations with Tehran.

Observers say that President Bill Clinton is eager for an opening to Iran that
could become part of his foreign relations legacy, alongside the recent trade
deals with China and Vietnam. "There's no question that both sides are looking
to do something," said one former US official with close ties to Iran.

But Iran remains a political time-bomb in the US. The recent convictions of 10
Iranian Jews on espionage charges has angered the powerful US Jewish community
and its congressional supporters, certainly blocking any chance of even a modest
US initiative until after the November elections.

President Clinton, citing Iran as a threat to national security, signed an
executive order in 1995 that barred US business dealings with Iran. In 1996, the
US Congress passed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which allows for US sanctions
against foreign companies participating in Iran's oil industry.

However, none of these efforts is preventing American brand-name products from
being widely available in Iran.

For example, Iranian police and other security services use Motorola radios that
a government official said were procured in Asia.

Local manufacturer Noushab in Tehran sells an Iranian-made soft-drink, with
imported flavourings, in Coca Cola bottles bearing the famous logo. Nissan Sharq
in Mashhad does the same with Pepsi and told the FT it hoped to produce under
license from Pepsi in the future.

Coca Cola supplies syrup to a plant in Iran, under an arrangement the company
said is authorised by a special licence from the US Treasury Department. Pepsi
is also trying to penetrate the market.

General Motors has also held discussions with Pars Khodro, an Iranian carmaker
to get back into the Iranian market, Iranian officials say. General Motors owned
Pars Khodro before it was national-ised after the 1979 revolution.

Products of Hewlett Packard and Intel are common sights on Jomhouri Street,
Tehran's most popular area for computer equipment.

Many of the products make their way to Iranian markets courtesy of Iranian
middle-men, particularly in Dubai.

Iranian business consultants say Xerox and Kodak are both pushing into Iran
through Dubai. Said one consultant: "The US is not monitoring things very
closely. They must know that agents in Dubai are importing far more US goods
than the local Dubai market can absorb."

But more direct routes are also available. While the trade embargo prohibits
foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Iran under the direction
of the parent company, this restriction is in practice easily sidestepped.

As long as the US parent does not "facilitate" the transaction or directly
approve the actions of a foreign subsidiary, those subsidiaries are free to deal
with Iran.

That channel has been particularly important for US oil companies, which fear
they will be frozen out of participating in the development of Iranian
oilfields. Conoco, the US oil group, has analysed seismic data for the National
Iranian Oil Company through its British subsidiary.

Those transactions are under investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets
Control, the US Treasury agency which enforces the trade embargo. Conoco has
denied violating the embargo.

Senior Iranian officials say Halliburton, the US oilfield services company,
supplies oil equipment. Dick Cheney, the Republican vice-presidential candidate
and former Halliburton chief executive, has urged an easing of the US sanctions.
Mr Cheney has said the company is allowed to operate legally in Iran through its
foreign subsidiaries.

The uncertainty over enforcement of the sanctions regime has encouraged US
companies to take risks. "A lot of companies are out there pushing the envelope
because it is so grey," said a US lawyer who counsels companies on trade with
Iran.

The dealing is not limited to large US companies. This week, five small US
companies had their wares displayed at the Tehran trade fair, using Iranian
go-betweens.

Vahid Vafaee, a Dubai-based trader, was selling for Wilson Art International, a
US-maker of household fittings. He said Wilson Art did not know he was
exhibiting their wares. But the Iranian representative of Jergens, a US
cosmetics producer, said that company was fully aware.

"It is a double standard," complained the representative of one leading French
company, who did not want to be named. "The US businesses are building market
share, but their government can threaten to take action against you in your US
market."

While some US companies are positioning themselves for an eventual lifting of
the US embargo, it is hard to ignore the opportunities already available. Iran
has a market of over 60m people, and with crude oil prices at current highs,
Iran is earning about Dollars 1bn a month more than had been budgeted.

LOAD-DATE: October 4, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 3, 2000, Tuesday USA Edition 2

WORLD NEWS: LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN: Death of PM starts debate in Dominica

BYLINE: By CANUTE JAMES

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 277 words

DATELINE: KINGSTON

The two parties in Dominica's shaky coalition administration were meeting
yesterday to consider the future of the government of the Caribbean island after
the death on Sunday of Roosevelt (Rosie) Douglas, the prime minister.

Pierre Charles, deputy leader of the Labour party, which was led by Mr Douglas,
has been appointed acting prime minister of the mountainous island of 75,000
people, whose economy is based on bananas, tourism and offshore financial
services.

"We expect the coalition to continue and we will meet the cabinet to review the
situation," said Charles Savarin, leader of the Freedom party, the minority
partner in the administration.

Mr Douglas, 58, took office in February with the support of the Freedom party
after Labour failed to gain an outright majority over the outgoing Workers'
party.

At university Mr Douglas was a "Black Power" advocate and was among radical
students jailed in Canada following disturbances on a university campus. As
opposition leader for a decade, he moderated his politics.

However, on becoming prime minister he caused concern among his more
conservative Caribbean colleagues by emphasising Dominica's strong links with
leftist parties and with leaders such as Muammer Gadaffi of Libya, who he had
invited to visit Dominica.

Mr Douglas also planned to seek membership of the European Union for Dominica,
arguing that this was the only way to accelerate the economic development of the
island, which has a per capita income of Dollars 3,400.

Foreign governments will be keen to see whether Mr Douglas's successor changes a
programme in which Dominica sells passports for Dollars 50,000.

LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 28, 2000, Thursday Europe Edition 1

OBSERVER: Up to date OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 167 words

Up to date

Kidnapping is very far from a joke, but the methods of the rebels-turned-bandits
holding dozens of hostages in the Philippine jungle are strange to say the
least.

Although they're on the run from 5,000 government troops, the rebels have
managed to rig up telephone links to the outside world. That allows them and
their captives to air demands on local radio stations. One hostage has even had
a chat with his mother in California.

The rebels are also groaning with cash from the sky-high ransoms Libya allegedly
dished out to get six western hostages released. And where there's money,
lawyers inevitably follow.

So one of the rebel leaders, who's improbably called Commander Robot, has turned
to that most effective of weapons: litigation. He's lodged a petition in a
Manila court, urging judges to intervene to stop the military assault. It's
novel behaviour for a guerrilla. But with a name like "Robot", it's hardly
surprising that he's trying out 21st-century techniques.

LOAD-DATE: September 27, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 28, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION: EU warned not to tap oil stocks: Opec says use of
reserves to bring down prices could prompt reaction

BYLINE: By DAN BILEFSKY, ROBERT CORZINE, NANCY DUNNE and ANDY WEBB-VIDAL

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 480 words

DATELINE: CARACAS, WASHINGTON and BRUSSELS

Leading oil exporters yesterday warned the West against releasing more emergency
stocks as European Union countries considered following a move by the US to tap
its strategic reserves in a bid to cut soaring prices.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, hosting a summit in Caracas of the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said such a move by Europe was
unnecessary and could prompt an Opec reaction.

"In times of war it would be normal to use reserves, in extraordinary
situations," Mr Chavez said. "I would recommend they evaluate this very
carefully. There is no extraordinary situation."

Ali Rodriguez, Opec president and Venezuela's oil minister, said if the EU
released reserves "Opec would have to evaluate its impact on the market and take
appropriate measures".

Libya said that if the release of US reserves and those in Europe caused prices
to drop "sharply", Opec would have to consider cutting output.

European Union finance ministers are set to discuss a Spanish proposal to tap
member states' oil reserves at a meeting this weekend.

Any formal proposal on releasing European supplies is unlikely to be decided
until an EU summit in the French resort town of Biarritz in October.

But the Dutch government yesterday said it would consider a collective move by
European countries to release oil supplies after French President Jacques
Chirac, whose country holds the EU presidency, agreed to back a Spanish proposal
to co-ordinate an EU-wide release in time for the October meeting.

Meanwhile in the US, the White House underlined its commitment to using
strategic reserves to help lower oil prices. Last Friday it announced it would
release 30m barrels of crude from emergency stocks over 90 days.

Robert Kripowicz, an assistant secretary for energy, pointed out to the
Senate-House Joint Economic Committee that the reserve had the potential to
supply much greater quantities of oil.

Mr Kripowicz urged the committee to push for reauthorisation of the legislation
covering the use of the reserve past the current fiscal year. "It is important
there be no ambiguity about the president's ability to use the SPR in the
future," he said.

Despite last Friday's US announcement, oil prices rose yesterday on renewed
fears of short supplies ahead of peak winter demand. London Brent crude futures
gained 12 cents to Dollars 30.54 a barrel having lost Dollars 2.50 since the US
plans were revealed. November light was 15 cents higher at Dollars 31.65.

Despite the Spanish proposal, it is unclear whether the EU will release
reserves. Britain, a big exporter of oil, said reserves should be used during
supply emergencies rather than for easing prices.

By Robert Corzine and Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas, Nancy Dunne in Washington and
Dan Bilefsky in Brussels ... Opec senses, Page 18 Commodities, Page 44 More
details: www.ft.com/oil

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 27, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 2

NATIONAL NEWS: Libyan ex-agent 'shown explosives' LOCKERBIE TRIAL SECURITY
MEASURES INCREASED TO PROTECT KEY WITNESS:

BYLINE: By JOHN MASON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 505 words

A former Libyan intelligence agent who later defected to the US was shown a
secret stock of plastic explosives by one of the two men accused of the bombing
of Pan-Am flight 103 in which 270 people were killed, the Lockerbie trial heard
yesterday.

Abdul Majid Giaka, one of the prosecution's key witnesses, said he had been
shown two bricks of yellow explosives kept by Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed
al-Megrahi in a desk drawer in his office at Malta airport.

The explosives had been given to Mr al-Megrahi by his co-defendant Lamen Khalifa
Fhimah, Mr Giaka told the court.

Extensive security measures were taken inside the special Scottish court in the
Netherlands to protect Mr Giaka. Screens hid his face from all but a few court
officials. His voice was electronically scrambled to protect his identity. Giaka
is also a false name.

Outside the court, security was increased to protect the agent who,
disillusioned with the Gaddafi regime, secretly passed information to the
Central Intelligence Agency about the workings of Libyan intelligence.

Mr al-Megrahi and Mr Fhimah are accused of murdering the 259 passengers and crew
of the aircraft and 11 Lockerbie residents in December 1988. It is alleged they
concealed the bomb inside a radio-cassette that was inside a suitcase.

They deny the charges and instead have accused members of two Palestinian
organisations of being behind the bombing.

Mr Giaka worked for Libyan intelligence from 1984. In 1986, he was posted to
Luqa airport in Malta to work on airline security, protecting crews and
passengers of Libyan Arab Airlines. Mr al-Megrahi and Mr Fhimah already worked
there in the same section, he said. Malta was a transit point for Libyan
intelligence agents and their airport jobs provided them with cover, he said.

At one point, Mr Fhimah unlocked a desk drawer and showed him the
yellow-coloured explosives, kept in paper boxes covered with baggage labels.

"Fhimah told me he had 10 kilos of TNT that were delivered to him by
al-Megrahi," he said. Mr Giaka was later told he would have to take custody of
the explosive when Mr Fhimah left Malta. He did this, taking the explosive to
the Libyan consulate in Malta.

In June or July 1986, Said Rashid, another Libyan intelligence agent, visited
Malta and spoke to Mr Giaka, the court heard.

As the two men passed a British aircraft on the tarmac, Mr Rashid asked Mr Giaka
to explore the possibility of placing an unaccompanied bag on board a British
aircraft. Mr Giaka consulted with a colleague before reporting that this would
be possible.

Mr Giaka also said he saw Mr Fhimah taking a brown suitcase off the luggage
carousel at Malta airport in December 1988. Mr Fhimah and Mr al-Megrahi then
left the airport with the case, which was not inspected by Customs officials, he
said.

Mr Giaka has spent the past nine years in the US under special protection. He
became uncomfortable working for Libyan intelligence because of its involvement
in terrorism and its assassination of dissidents.

LOAD-DATE: September 26, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 26, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Malaysia to send troops to guard resorts

BYLINE: By SHEILA MCNULTY

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 372 words

DATELINE: KUALA LUMPUR

Malaysia is to send hundreds of troops and extra ships to guard its resort
islands from further incursions by Filipino rebels who have twice seized
hostages from the area near north-eastern Borneo.

"We're very serious," Najib Tun Razak, Malaysia's defence minister, said
yesterday. "We're now empowered to take measures." The armed forces have been
ordered to shoot on sight any intruders.

Within a week, the authorities plan to add 600 servicemen to the 170 already
posted to the islands after Abu Sayyaf Muslim rebels stole the short distance
across the water from the Philippines to seize three Malaysians from Pandanan
island earlier this month.

They also plan to raise the number of ships plying the coastlines from seven to
20.

The latest incursion was particularly embarrassing for Malaysia, as it vowed to
heighten security following an earlier - and highly unusual - raid in April.
Then, the rebels seized 21 people, including western tourists and Malaysians,
from the nearby Sipadan island. Most of them have been freed amid reports that
Libya and Malaysia paid millions of US dollars in development assistance widely
viewed as a ransom.

The Malaysian islands are a popular destination for divers from around the
world, and many had continued going to the area because of pledges of enhanced
security.

But Mr Najib warned that, despite Malaysia's best efforts to step up the defence
of its coastlines, there was no "absolute guarantee". The waters between
Malaysia and the Philippines are too full of islands and inlets to wholly
defend, the authorities said.

Other Abu Sayyaf factions are now holding 13 Filipinos and one American despite
a military operation that began more than a week ago to end the hostage-taking.
The rebels insist they are fighting to make their impoverished region a separate
Islamic state, but the Philippine government considers them bandits.

Thousands of illegal Filipino immigrants are believed to live on the Malaysian
side of the waters, raising fears that any relatives of the Abu Sayyaf among
them might help the rebels. Mahathir Mohamad, the Malaysian prime minister, has
said the authorities will move to deport the illegal immigrants, who have long
been tolerated.

LOAD-DATE: September 25, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 26, 2000, Tuesday Surveys PHI1

SURVEY - PHILLIPINES: International affairs back on the agenda: FOREIGN POLICY
by Peter Montagnon: In spite of the president's focus on domestic policy, the
kidnapping of foreigners in Mindanao has complicated relations with several
countries

BYLINE: By PETER MONTAGNON

SECTION: SURVEY - PHILLIPINES; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 649 words

Compared with his internationally-minded predecessor, Joseph Estrada, the
president, appears less concerned with foreign policy. While President Fidel
Ramos sought to put the Philippines on the international map and established an
easy rapport with his regional counterparts, Mr Estrada's focus has been on his
domestic agenda - his pro-poor policy and, this year, on sorting out the Muslim
rebels on the southern region of Mindanao.

Yet international affairs still have a way of intruding. The kidnapping of
several foreigners from Malaysia in April by the Abu Sayyaf Muslim group who
then held them hostage in the Philippines has tarnished the government's image
abroad and complicated relations with several European countries as well as
Malaysia itself.

While France and Germany protested at the Mr Estrada's decision this month to
launch a military strike at at the Abu Sayyaf rebels, the problem has also made
relations with the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)
more difficult, says Aileen Baviera, a foreign policy expert at the independent
Philippine-China Development Resource Center.

The Mindanao situation concerns not only Malaysia, but also nearby Indonesia.
All this comes on top of a rather carefree approach to diplomacy that has
already landed Mr Estrada in trouble with Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir
Mohamad, because of his outspoken support for Anwar Ibrahim, Dr Mahathir's
former deputy. There is thus a sense of drift in Philippine foreign policy, says
Alex Magno, a leading political commentator.

The country's priorities remain clear:

* Cementing and developing economic integration with the rest of the region,

* Helping forge better security relationships through Asean and its broader
regional forum, and

* Improving the security relationship with the US in ways that will help Manila
deal with its chronic disputes with China over sovereignty of the Spratly
Islands in the South China Sea.

It does not help the Philippines deal with these problems that the country's
accomplished foreign minister, Domingo Siazon, is focusing on his bid to become
secretary general of the United Nations, adds Mr Magno.

Some observers suggest that the role of the foreign ministry is diminished given
Mr Estrada's highly presidential style in which he basically calls the shots.

Lauro Baja, under-secretary at the foreign ministry, denies widespread rumours
that his ministry was opposed to the controversial involvement of Libya in
obtaining the release of the April hostages. This was natural because of Libya's
long-standing interest in this part of Asia, he says, but he makes little
attempt to insist on the official line that no money changed hands in return for
the release of the hostages.

Meanwhile, the foreign ministry is continuing to work on solutions to the core
diplomatic tasks in hand, he says. It has actively supported closer ties between
Asean and the three nations of north-east Asia - China, Japan and South Korea -
as a means of strengthening integration and enhancing security.

He is also optimistic, following discussions in the Chinese city of Dalien last
month, that Beijing will agree to a code of conduct for the South China Sea.
This should include a moratorium on the building of new structures, though
differences remain over how it should be worded.

In the meantime, collaboration with the US is being pursued through the new
Visiting Forces Agreement, permitting stepped up joint exercises.

One of the good pieces of recent news is that this relationship has not been
upset by the kidnapping of a US citizen, Jeffrey Schilling. The US has put
little public pressure on the Philippines in the wake of this development and in
Manila this month, William Cohen, the US defence secretary, noted that military
co-operation between the two countries would contribute to regional security.

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September 26, 2000, Tuesday Surveys PHI1

SURVEY - PHILLIPINES: Violence exposes policy weaknesses: INSURGENCY MOVEMENTS
by Hugh Williamson: Manila's failure to demonstrate a strong approach to the
violence has allowed others to become involved in order to further their own
ends

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: SURVEY - PHILLIPINES; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 1141 words

The past six months has been the toughest period in years for the Philippine
government in its long-running battle to overcome various insurgency movements.

Bloody clashes with Islamic rebels in the southern Philippines, costing hundreds
of lives, have put paid to earlier prospects of a peace agreement to end three
decades of conflict.

Foreigners - including western tourists - and Filipinos have been held hostage
months by a separate group of Muslim rebels-turned-bandits, thrusting the
Philippines into the international media and diplomatic spotlight. The effects
of a military operation launched this month to rescue the remaining hostages
remain unclear. A new upsurge in attacks by communist guerrillas has imposed
further strains on the government and armed forces.

These events have absorbed much of the government's attention, hampering its
efforts to push for sustained economic growth. More worryingly, say analysts,
Joseph Estrada, the Philippine president, has failed to display any effective
strategy in dealing with the rebels.

This perceived lack of leadership has further dampened confidence and damaged
international business perceptions of the country.

Marites Vitug, a writer on the southern Philippines says: "The scenario is very
bleak, as I don't see any coherent policy on behalf of the government in dealing
with these insurgency movements."

The recent violence has been the worst since the signing in September 1996 of a
landmark peace accord between the government of Fidel Ramos, the then president,
and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the largest Islamic insurgency
group at that time. The accord followed years of delicate peace talks.

The most serious threat in recent months has come from the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) -a break-away faction of the MNLF - with an estimated
fighting force of about 15,000.

Small-scale clashes in March - for which the military and MILF blame each other
- spiralled into prolonged battles, mostly involving military assaults on MILF
camps. Camp Abubakar, the MILF's headquarters in Mindanao, the main southern
island, fell to the military in July. Hundreds of soldiers, rebels and civilians
have been killed and up to 500,000 people have been forced to leave their homes.

In retaliation, suspected MILF fighters have launched bomb attacks on urban
centres, including Manila, killing dozens of civilians and heightening security
concerns. Hashim Salamat, the MILF's founder and current leader, has called for
a jihad, or holy war against government forces.

The violence has led to the suspension of government-MILF peace talks, which
started in October 1999. The government insists the MILF must drop its aim of
succession from the Philippines and lay down its arms, before talks can resume.

Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesman, rejects these conditions. "Until such time the
government manifests its sincerity to pursue a peaceful resolution to the
Mindanao problem, the MILF will not respond," he says.

Central to the MILF's cause is a sense of discrimination based on what it sees
as 400 years of exploitation by a series of colonising powers, and most recently
by settlers from the Christian-dominated northern Philippines, according to
Samuel Tan, head of the Mindanao studies programme at Manila's University of the
Philippines.

These factors are more important among the country's estimated 4.5m Muslims than
perceived religious divisions with Christians, he says. The capture of MILF
bases "is just a symbolic victory. It will certainly not end the conflict", he
says.

And while Mr Estrada's tough military stance towards the MILF - as well as
promises of increased government spending in Mindanao - has boosted his
popularity ratings, the conflict has damaged parts of the Mindanao economy,
especially agriculture, and has held back foreign investment and stock market
activity.

The government says it recognises that long-term peace will only come through a
political solution to Muslim grievances.

However, business associations, church and civic groups in Mindanao and
elsewhere complain that the military's provocative action in clearing MILF
camps, while legally necessary, has set back prospects for such a solution.

Manuel Yan, Mr Estrada's adviser on the peace process with Muslim and communist
rebels, agrees. "President Estrada has a very different approach to the peace
process (to that of Mr Ramos). Through this military activity, and setting
conditions for talks, the peace process will take a little longer than
expected."

Coinciding with offensives against the MILF, the series of hostage-takings by
the Abu Sayyaf - a smaller but ostensibly more radical Islamic separatist group
- came at an awkward time for Manila. But analysts believe the government's
handling of the crisis has been poor.

The rebels captured a group of Filipino teachers and school children in March,
then in April they kidnapped 21 mostly foreign tourists and resort workers in
eastern Malaysia. Most of the captives have been released, allegedly in exchange
for ransoms worth millions of dollars. Several similar kidnappings have since
occurred.

Western governments with nationals among the hostages have been criticised for
condoning ransom payments. Government negotiators deny ransoms were paid, and
partly blame international pressure to avoid military force for the lengthy
negotiations.

"The Abu Sayyaf are not rebels, but simply bandits.

This has been allowed to go too far," says Mr Yan.

For months, Manila's lack of coherence and urgency in efforts to end the crisis
- and in the case of the western hostages, resort to outside help from Libya -
allowed various other political forces - including the military and local
politicians - to become involved to further their own ends, adding confusion to
the hostage negotiations.

A military operation launched on September 16 to rescue the remaining hostages
on Jolo Island has met with some success, but its longer-term impact on the Abu
Sayyaf, and on Muslim-government relations, remains unclear.

On another front, attacks by communist rebels from the New People's Army (NPA)
have killed at least 40 soldiers and civilians in recent months. The NPA -
fighting for a communist state since the 1960s - has launched a new offensive,
analysts say, after withdrawing from peace talks last year when the Philippines
signed a military co-operation agreement with the US.

The rebels, who operate in many parts of the Philippines, are also taking
advantage of the military's pre-occupation with the Muslim insurgency, says Mr
Yan. There are now about 11,000 communist rebels, the military says. Mr Yan says
the government's current approach to the NPA is to hold local-level peace
negotiations, although he admits that few new peace agreements have been signed.

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September 22, 2000, Friday Europe Edition 1

WORLD NEWS - EUROPE: Eta suspected of shooting COUNCILLOR KILLED DEATH SEEN AS
REVENGE FOR CRACKDOWN:

BYLINE: By LESLIE CRAWFORD

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 436 words

DATELINE: MADRID

A much-debilitated Eta, the Basque separatist group, yesterday hit back after
the arrest of its military commander and other senior operatives by killing a
local councillor of the ruling Popular party in Barcelona.

In the first action since a government crackdown that saw 36 people arrested in
Spain and France in the last week, Jose Luis Ruiz Casado was shot dead by two
gunmen outside his home.

Although Eta did not claim responsibility, the attack bore the hallmark of the
Basque separatist group, which has killed 11 councillors of the centre-right
Popular party since 1995. Eta claimed it was behind all those attacks, but tends
to take weeks before doing so.

The Spanish government linked the councillor's killing to an anti-terrorist
operation last weekend in which French and Spanish security forces captured
Ignacio Gracia Arregui, alias Inaki de Renteria, Eta's top military leader.
Another 36 people were arrested on both sides of the border, including suspects
charged with being Eta's most experienced forgers, bomb makers and electronics
experts.

Pio Cabanillas, government spokesman, warned that the fight against terrorism
was not over. Eta, he said, should realise that "they are isolated. They
represent nothing and no one."

Intelligence experts saw yesterday's attack as proof of Eta's weakness. After a
campaign of terror in the summer, in which Eta set off car bombs in Madrid and
killed Socialist and Popular party politicians, local councillors, police and
army officers, yesterday's hit-and-run attack in the outskirts of Barcelona
smacked of an opportunistic operation, intelligence officials said.

"Ten to 15 years ago," one said, "Basque terrorists were trained in Libya and
Algeria. Eta enjoyed good relations with the Irish Republican Army. The group
had the ability to plan attacks on the headquarters of the civil guard and the
ministry of defence in Madrid. But Eta has lost the international support it
once had, and its operational capabilities have suffered as a result."

Nevertheless, covert support for Eta in Spain's three Basque provinces remains
strong. In the last regional elections, in 1998, Euskal Herritarrok, a party
close to Eta, polled almost 20 per cent of the vote. The Madrid government is
trying to stifle this support with laws that will criminalise any expression of
support for Eta or its actions.

Many of those arrested in last weekend's raids were members of Euskal
Herritarrok. They have been charged with raising funds for Eta and finding new
recruits. A spokeswoman for the radical Basque party yesterday denied the links
with Eta.

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September 22, 2000, Friday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN: Hugo Chavez takes a big risk in seizing
the Opec tiger by the tail: Leading the revival of the moribund oil producer
group offers potential rewards and some dangers. Andy Webb-Vidal reports:

BYLINE: By ANDY WEBB-VIDAL

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 828 words

Drive down the pot-holed streets of downtown Caracas this weekend and you could
be forgiven for thinking a coup d'etat has just taken place. Hundreds of
edgy-looking troops stand guard on the main thoroughfares, and sectors near the
centre are out of bounds.

But the atmosphere is calm, cut only by the pungent smells of freshly-laid
asphalt and paint, a sign that preparations are taking place for something
unusual.

President Hugo Chavez failed in his coup attempt in 1992. But now, buoyed by his
landslide re-election victory in July, Mr Chavez is gambling on what could be
his most important diplomatic coup to date: hosting next week's summit of the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

Only the second ever in Opec's 40-year history, and 25 years after the first in
Algeria, the summit is essentially being billed as celebratory and ceremonial.

Yet with angry protests over fuel prices in Europe, and deepening concerns in
the US that once again rising oil prices threaten to stunt global economic
growth, the event is expected to draw widespread attention.

Equally, the spotlight will focus closely on Mr Chavez and Ali Rodriguez,
Venezuela's energy minister and current president of Opec, given their prominent
roles in helping resurrect this fractious and virtually moribund organisation.

Observers are warning that Mr Chavez will have to tread carefully .

"The success of the summit will depend on two key factors," said Humberto
Calderon, a former oil minister and head of Petroleos de Venezuela, the state
oil company. "That the big producers are sufficiently represented, and what will
be on Opec's agenda."

Iraq's President Saddam Hussein and Libya's Colonel Muammer Gadaffi, as
expected, declined their invitations for security reasons. But most of the other
eight heads of state are scheduled to attend. Saudi Arabia will be represented
by Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, and Kuwait by Crown Prince Saad
Al-Abdullah Al-Salem.

Opec output levels are not officially on the agenda, but there is little doubt
they will be discussed informally. Closer commercial ties between members, and
the strengthening of relations with non-Opec oil exporters, such as Mexico and
Russia, are also expected to be proposed.

But perhaps the most important message to emerge next week, Venezuelan
government officials say, will be an attempt by Opec to deflect blame for any
threat to world economic health.

Fuel prices, Mr Rodriguez argues, are at current levels not because of Opec's
supply restraint, but because of excessively high taxes in Europe, insufficient
refining capacity in the US, and speculation on futures markets in London and
New York.

"Consumers are tired of seeing oil exporting nations as the scapegoat, they are
becoming aware that taxes are behind the exorbitant prices," said Mazhar
Al-Shereidah, a Venezuela-based oil consultant. "This constitutes the platform
for Opec to make a call for the stabilisation of a market in which each actor
must accept responsibility."

Despite calls for increased output from Opec, the US has hitherto stopped short
of singling out any member state for resisting or for defending the group's
new-found unity.

But in July Mr Chavez sailed Venezuela perilously close to the wind, arousing US
criticism with his visit to Baghdad to personally invite the Iraqi president to
the summit. Still, Opec and rising oil prices have served to contain Mr Chavez's
wider ambitions as a self-styled defender of poorer nations from US hegemony,
analysts say.

Advisers are said also to be warning Mr Chavez that his rhetoric could pose a
greater danger to Opec's delicate internal political balances than to its
relations with the US. Mr Chavez, prone to long, confrontational speeches, has
in recent months toyed with personally claiming credit for the trippling in oil
prices during the past 18 months.

"It has been said that Venezuela is now leading Opec, that sort of thing does
not go down well with the other countries," Mr Calderon said. "If Mr Chavez
launches into the type of speech that Venezuelans are used to, rather than
benefiting Venezuela's interests, it will damage them."

As far as winning political points at home is concerned, though, analysts are
sceptical of the benefits of the summit. If anything, Mr Chavez is following the
steps of former president Carlos Andres Perez, who in the 1970s promoted himself
as a Third World statesman but led Venezuela into an ill-fated oil-financed
spending binge.

"He's tracing the same route that Perez took, an attempt to gain domestic
prestige through the promotion of his international image," said Angel Alvarez,
a political analyst.

"Because of the contradictions inherent in Opec, oil prices could fall at any
moment," Mr Alvarez said. "Mr Chavez is playing a dangerous game as he doesn't
have all the cards in his hands. This is exactly what Carlos Andres Perez did,
and he paid a high price for it."

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September 19, 2000, Tuesday USA Edition 1

OBSERVER: Hotel hell AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 170 words

Hotel hell

Why will Americans slog across town to get to the International Monetary Fund's
affair in Prague next week, while their European counterparts can tuck into a
second croissant just a stone's throw away?

Rather surprisingly, it all has to do with Libya. Europeans and others at the
annual IMF/World Bank meetings can happily stay at the Corinthia Towers, the
second biggest hotel in the city, which lies right next to the Congress Centre
and within the surrounding security zone.

But US citizens, subject to the country's strict ban on trade with Tripoli,
won't even be able to buy a newspaper at the hotel. Washington regards Corinthia
Hotels International as a Libyan front. The group's managers, the Maltese Pisani
family, respond that Libyan interests own less than half the shares.

It's a rather messy dispute. But at least its net effect is bound to please
someone - the demonstrators who'd like to wave a few placards and block some
roads on the delegates now even longer way into work.

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September 14, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Conoco risks US wrath by aiding Iran's oil industry

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 579 words

DATELINE: TEHRAN

Conoco, the US oil company, has collaborated with Iran on work to develop one of
the world's largest oil fields, despite the risk of being accused of breaching
US sanctions against Iran.

Senior Iranian officials told the Financial Times that Conoco helped analyse
data collected last year by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) during its
exploration of the Azadegan field, on the understanding that Conoco would be
given priority in developing the new field once the US sanctions are lifted.

Ali Hashemi, who was deputy oil minister at the time and is now chairman of the
parliamentary oil committee, said Conoco had "provided the technology to further
appraise the volume of oil reserves". He said that he was not aware of any money
changing hands and could not judge whether Conoco was breaking US sanctions.

"Naturally any company that helps in exploration has priority (in competing for
the contract)," Mr Hashemi added.

In a statement Conoco said: "We have seen seismic data from the field and
provided our opinion to NIOC. We do not believe it is in violation of the
sanctions. We looked at the data and provided our opinion on what it showed."

President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 1995 prohibiting US
involvement in developing Iran's oil industry.

He said the "activities and policies of the government of Iran constitute an
unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and
economy of the US". His order was in direct response to a Dollars 600m (Pounds
427m) agreement between Conoco and NIOC to develop Iran's Sirri oil field. The
deal was blocked and the Iranian government handed it to Total of France
instead.

Within less than two months, Mr Clinton issued a second order effectively
banning all US trade with Iran, including the export of technology and technical
data.

NIOC and Iran's oil ministry declined to comment on Conoco's involvement.

One oil executive in Tehran described the Azadegan field in southwestern Iran as
"the jewel in the crown". Analysts estimate oil reserves in place of 20bn to
25bn barrels.

Conoco, as well as the other leading US oil companies, Chevron and Exxon Mobil,
maintain regular contact with NIOC and lobby against the US sanctions.

"It's no secret that we've maintained a dialogue with NIOC since 1995 in the
hope that US sanctions would be lifted at some point and we would be allowed to
do business," said Carlton Adams, Conoco spokesman.

Archie Dunham, Conoco's chief executive, visits Iran regularly to maintain his
relationships with leaders there. He recently won approval from the US
government to travel to Libya to assess large holdings Conoco had to relinquish
after US sanctions were imposed in 1986.

US oil companies argue the sanctions unfairly open the field to their European,
Canadian and Asian competitors, which have signed oil and gas deals with Iran
worth about Dollars 8bn in the past three years.

The deals have gone ahead despite the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) passed by
Congress in 1996 which threatens sanctions against non-US companies that invest
in Iran's energy sector.

The act, however, allows the president to issue waivers, which he did following
pressure from Europe. ILSA expires in August 2001, but neither the Democrats nor
the Republicans have signalled they would move to lift the executive orders.

Over the past 18 months, reflecting a slow thaw in relations, the US has eased
some restrictions.

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September 13, 2000, Wednesday Europe Edition 1

OBSERVER: Oilocracy OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 286 words

Oilocracy

All the fuss about the oil price has distracted the folk at Opec from the real
issue - who to choose as their next secretary-general. As far as the markets are
concerned the head of the oil cartel's Vienna-based bureaucracy is a matter of
the utmost indifference, but that hasn't stopped the 11 member states fighting
themselves to a standstill over the issue during the last year or so.

Despite putting the subject on the agenda for last weekend's meeting, they still
can't decide on who should follow Rilwanu Lukman, the former Nigerian foreign
secretary and Knight of the British Empire who's had the post since 1995. He
handed in his notice last year, when he was called back home as an energy
adviser, but kept the job when his masters couldn't agree on his successor.

It's long been an unwritten rule that the secretary-general should be anyone but
a Saudi, as a sort of sop to minnows such as Ecuador and Qatar. But now that
Opec's got its act together, Riyadh would like to have the job to show that
things are really in hand. That's had other members squealing about threats to
Opec's independence. Iranian and Iraqi contenders have squared off for the post,
and now even Libya's entered the fray.

The best-qualified candidate is probably Iraq's former United Nations ambassador
Abdul Amir al-Anbari, but with his country's pariah status and its place outside
Opec's quota system, he'd probably be best advised not to buy a house in Vienna
just yet. And though the ministers now say they'll settle the issue in November,
no one is too convinced. Still, with relative harmony on production policy after
all those years of discord, at least they've got something to disagree about.

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September 13, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 1

OBSERVER: Squabble AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 313 words

Squabble

All the fuss about the oil price has distracted the folk at Opec from another
issue - who to choose as their next secretary-general.

As far as the markets are concerned, the identity of the new head of the oil
cartel's Vienna-based bureaucracy is a matter of the utmost indifference.

But that hasn't stopped the 11 member states fighting themselves to a standstill
over the issue during the last year or so - even though they have managed to
agree on a new oil production target.

In spite of putting the subject on the agenda for last weekend's meeting, they
still can't decide who should follow Rilwanu Lukman, the former Nigerian foreign
secretary and Knight of the British Empire who has heldthe post since 1995.

He handed in his notice last year, when he was called back home as an energy
adviser, but kept the job when the members couldn't agree on his successor.

It's long been an unwritten rule that the secretary-general should be anyone but
a Saudi, a sort of sop to less influential members such as Qatar. But now that
Opec is running reasonably smoothly, Riyadh argues that a Saudi head would not
create a power imbalance, but would be a sign of the organisation's maturity.

That has had other members complaining about threats to Opec's independence.
Iranian and Iraqi contenders squared off for the job, and now even Libya has
entered the fray.

The best-qualified candidate is probably Iraq's former United Nations ambassador
Abdul Amir al-Anbari, but with his country's pariah status and its place outside
Opec's quota system, he'd probably be best advised not to rent a house in Vienna
just yet.

And though the ministers now say they'll settle the issue next month, no one is
convinced.

Still, with relative harmony on production policy after all those years of
discord, at least they've still got something to disagree on.

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September 11, 2000, Monday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Freed captives head for Tripoli

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 36 words

Freed captives head for Tripoli

Four Europeans released by Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines were due to
fly to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, before returning to their home countries.
Asia-Pacific, Page 4

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September 11, 2000, Monday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Released hostages from Philippines on way home via
Tripoli

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 560 words

DATELINE: CEBU

Four Europeans released at the weekend by Muslim rebels in the southern
Philippines were last night due to fly to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, before
returning to their home countries.

The two Finns, a Frenchman and German released on Saturday were the last to be
freed among 10 western tourists captured at a Malaysian diving resort on April
23 and taken to the island of Jolo.

Libya has allegedly paid Dollars 1m ransoms for the release of the western
hostages, in a bid to build international goodwill towards Tripoli.

Two French journalists who were captured in July while reporting on the hostage
crisis are still being held by the Abu Sayyaf rebels. Negotiators had hoped the
journalists would also be set free on Saturday, but they said yesterday that
talks for their release would resume only on Tuesday.

The delay is to allow tensions between Abu Sayyaf factions on Jolo to subside,
Robert Aventajado, Manila's chief negotiator said.

The tensions, apparently over the division of ransom money, led to the ambushing
on Saturday of government emissaries on their way to receive the hostages from
the rebel faction holding them.

At least three bodyguards were killed, and 20 other people injured in the
ambush, carried out by gunmen from a separate faction.

A Filipino worker is the only hostage from the original group of 21 people
captured in Malaysia still held. A separate Abu Sayyaf faction is also holding a
US hostage, Jeffrey Schilling, who was captured last month.

Finns Seppo Fraenti and Risto Vahanen, German Marc Wallert and Frenchman
Stephane Loisy were transferred on Saturday from Jolo to Cebu, central
Philippines, by military aircraft.

When the four disembarked at Cebu's airforce base into the warm night air after
four-and-a-half months in the jungle, all had full beards and wore tattered
clothes, carrying their possessions over their shoulders in rice sacks and
battered rucksacks.

"This has been a nightmare for us all, but now it's over," Mr Vahanen said. "We
are physically fit, but mentally it has been very straining. No one committed
suicide, but it was not far away."

The governments of France, Germany and Finland expressed relief over the
releases, and thanked the Philippines and Libya.

Senior diplomats from other western countries have criticised the European
governments' approach to the hostage crisis, especially their endorsement of
long negotiations with the kidnappers, and of Libya's alleged ransom payments.

Gerhard Schroder, the German chancellor, defended his government's stance. "That
the government insisted on a peaceful solution has shown itself to be correct.
Our patience was worth it," he said in Berlin.

The tensions among rebel factions on Jolo had arisen as a result of injecting
huge ransom payments into extremely poor communities, analysts said.

Manuel Mogato, a specialist writer on security issues, said: "Money is at the
root of everything happening in Jolo now, and it will get worse."

The rebels were also nervous over possible military attacks when all the
hostages were released, he added.

The hostage saga has been deeply embarrassing for Manila, which for months
appeared incapable of bringing the crisis to an end.

Philippines President Joseph Estrada said he was pleased but "not 100 per cent
happy" as several hostages remained in captivity.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 9, 2000, Saturday London Edition 3

NATIONAL NEWS: Troubleshooter bets on the Dome: Scheherazade Daneshkhu finds the
new executive chairman of the Millennium Dome rising to the challenge of the
role

BYLINE: By SCHEHERAZADE DANESHKHU

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 527 words

When his fiancee left him two weeks before his wedding, David James's despair
led him to stake almost a year's salary on a horse. He won that bet and while he
insists he is not a gambler, he is about to embark on the riskiest step in his
career.

The new executive chairman of the Millennium Dome - its third chairman in its
short life - is used to challenges. He is not bothered by being in the limelight
as long as he is allowed to get on with the job, he says.

That job is to ensure the Dome trades as a solvent company until the end of the
year and to be assured he has the money to get through to that point.

When the Dome asked for another Pounds 47m this week - its fourth such request,
taking the total in unexpected grants and advances to Pounds 179m - the
Millennium Commission, the lottery distributor, made installing Mr James as
executive chairman a condition of the grant.

It is not hard to see why. Mr James oozes a brisk efficiency and a sure grasp of
corporate survival tactics.

His assignments have included helping to structure the rescue of the Lloyd's of
London insurance market; uncovering fraud at collapsed mini-conglomerate Eagle
Trust; unwinding the global freight group LEP with Pounds 750m of debts;
discovering the Iraqi supergun at a company he chaired; and negotiating the
release of British engineering consultants in Libya.

As someone newly catapulted into the Dome, he can afford to be straight-talking
about where the problems lie but will not apportion blame. That, he says is for
the National Audit Office.

"The problem is the failure to look at the overall strategic issues. The
complexities of the close-out were almost completely ignored. It's like starting
a landslide and then not having a plan with which to stop the damn thing," he
said yesterday.

Nine of the 12 board members are non-executive. Surely they should have spotted
the problem? Mr James concedes: "This was not set up as if it were the board of
a public company, as it should have been. This is aCompanies Act company, not a
government department and it was not set up with a board structure you'd expect
in a public listed company. If it had been, a lot of these problems would have
gone a different way."

Very little of the extra Pounds 47m is due to an overrun on operating costs, he
insists, but is needed to close off contractual liabilities. "I think I've got
those adequately covered. We've got a small contingency of Pounds 5m written in
to cover things I haven't thought of - that's my comfort zone."

Closing the Dome early would cost an extra Pounds 40m-Pounds 50m, an amount that
will fall by about Pounds 8m a month. The main costs would relate to potential
claims from caterers and shopkeepers due to the loss of trading revenue by
terminating their contracts before the end of the year.

Can he be sure, then, that he will not need to ask for any more cash from the
commission which has already raised its funding from Pounds 449m to Pounds 628m?

"If I had to go back to the commission for more money, I'd swim from Greenwich -
and I'm a rotten swimmer." That appears to be a gamble he is not prepared to
take.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 9, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

PERSPECTIVES: Engrossing, intelligent, expansive . . . foppish: LUNCH WITH THE
FT: As Simon Russell Beale embarks on the theatre's most famous part, he tells
James Harding that playing Hamlet always changes your life

BYLINE: By JAMES HARDING

SECTION: PERSPECTIVES; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 1456 words

"I'm having pig," says Simon Russell Beale before I sit down. I have arrived
late and he points at the menu with theatrical glee: "Charcuterie and then loin
of pork. A lunch of pig. Actually, a critic once said I look like a pig, if I
remember . . ."

We are at The People's Palace, the restaurant upstairs at the Royal Festival
Hall in London. It used to have great food and a spectacular view over the
Thames. These days, it has the view.

But, being next to the National Theatre, it is a convenient place for lunch with
a Shakespearean actor. This year, some might say, the Shakespearean Actor.

Simon Russell Beale opened this week as Hamlet at the National Theatre - the
first production at the National since Daniel Day-Lewis broke down on stage in
mid-performance while playing the part, leaving Ian Charleson, then dying of
Aids-related illnesses, to pick up the role and see out the rest of the run on
steroids.

"There have only ever been three National productions," he says. "Albert Finney
did his for Peter Hall. Daniel for Richard (Eyre). And, now," he pauses, for a
self-mocking smirk at his act-orish flourish, "I am giving mine for Trev (Trevor
Nunn)."

He is not quite right. The history of Hamlet at the National is a little more
grand. Peter O'Toole played the part on the National's first night, in a
production directed by Laurence Olivier.

At the age of 39, Russell Beale says he is "pushing it a bit" to play Hamlet.
And, perhaps with the help of a pig-rich diet, the corpulent classical actor
does not have the sallow, brooding looks of other tyro actors who have played
the role.

But Russell Beale has emerged as one of Britain's most engrossing and
intelligent stage actors. His performance two years ago as Iago illuminated the
darkest parts of a character he describes as "the longest suicide note ever
written". There was a cheery relish in Iago's cruelty, while also something
pitifully pedantic in his fastidious manipulation of all around him.

The production of Othello, like Richard III, The Tempest and Troilus and
Cressida, were all done "with Sam" - Sam Mendes. "He has done four of my
Shakespeares," says Russell Beale, then, correcting himself. "Or, I have done
four of his."

Russell Beale would have liked to have teamed up again for Hamlet. "We were a
proven combination," he says. But things changed with American Beauty, Mendes'
directorial debut.

"After you win five Oscars, your life changes." So instead of Mendes, John Caird
was chosen to direct Hamlet.

It is a watershed for Russell Beale. "Anyone who ever plays it says it changes
your life for ever," he says.

The discussion about Hamlet is itself a display of Russell Beale's quicksilver
character. He is, by turn, frivolous, then pompous. Self-deprecating, then
ponderous. Silly, then thoughtful.

"The reason Hamlet is absolutely terrifying is it is the most famous part ever
written. I've got not to worry about trying to be . . . (pause for effect) ...
Extraordinary. Or worry about wearing pyjamas. Or vomiting on the ghost. (A
giggle, then furrowing of the brow.)

"The first thing is a slow reading. It's three-dimensional literary criticism.
Ooh, look at those lovely fat chips. (Waiter puts bowl of potato wedges on
table.) You have to make decisions that you can back up. Is there a sexual
relationship between Gertrude and Claudius? Is Horatio older or younger than
Hamlet? Would you like to share the chips?"

Russell Beale is proud, swottish even, about his cerebral qualities as an actor.

"I trained at Gonville & Caius," he says, tongue firmly in cheek, early on in
the lunch. But, later and without the self-conscious irony, he returns to his
"genuine surprise" at having had a successful academic record at Cambridge: "I
am very proud of having got a first."

Still, intellectual actors before Russell Beale have been unhinged by playing
Hamlet. "I understand people going mad," he says and, suddenly, the jollity with
which he greases the wheels of conversation has gone.

"I am of an age now, when people that I love are going to begin to die
undiscovered country from whose bourn/No traveller returns ...These words prey
on you. Can you lose your mind? Yes."

Russell Beale is more than musing. In the months since we first met and he has
been rehearsing for Hamlet, Russell Beale's mother died.

The loss, he says, has shaped his performance. When he says "The readiness is
all," he thinks of her. He chose to deliver the final "I am dead" speech
standing up, because, he says, recalling his mother's drawn-out battle with
cancer, "that was what my mother was for five months".

The most touching tribute to his mother is, perhaps, that he says her death has
resulted in "a much softer Hamlet than I thought I'd do. A romantic Hamlet. One
where everyone potentially loves each other."

During the illness, he was one of few in the family out of place in a hospital.
His mother was a doctor, his father is a military medic who moved from one
foreign posting to another: Penang, Libya and Singapore. Other siblings - all
called Beale, Russell

Beale is his stage name - are doctors, too.

Russell Beale never entertained the idea of medicine, although he embarked on
some foolish enough career forays. He loused up his bid to become a banker by
sending fawning letters to City institutions but getting the banks mixed up; he
toyed with the idea of joining the Foreign Office, but judged that "they would
not have wanted a homosexual running the British Council".

Having been a singer at school and university, he applied to music college after
university and got into the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. From there, he
side-stepped into acting and, when his Cambridge contemporary Stephen Fry
offered him a role in a new play, Russell Beale left his classes for the stage.

He remains, he says, "very fond of Stephen, who is a tremendous chap". Indeed,
he speaks warmly about one theatre friend after the next.

But Russell Beale seems to have a solitary life. He is gay, but single. A
workaholic, who is, in both the literal and old-fashioned sense, a confirmed
bachelor.

He seems to expect that everything might change with the next production. "After
Hamlet there will be a huge great reassessment," he says, suggesting that he
will reflect on his personal life but also consider opportunities for more film,
television and, perhaps, even the odd part in a modern stage play.

Those theatrical friends he is prone to mentioning could, he knows, prove
useful.

"There comes a stage when you have to say: Oh gosh! I now know a number of the
most powerful stars in Hollywood. I know Sam and Ralph and Emma."

Russell Beale's association with Mr Mendes, Mr Fiennes and Ms Thomson could well
propel him into the movies in time. He also has Shakespearean ambitions beyond
Hamlet: "I still want to play the Scottish king," he says, and picking himself
up for an actorish slip in the presence of a layman, he says: "Sorry, for frig's
sake. I mean Macbeth."

His acting has taken him on tours round the world - I saw him in a freezing
theatre in Shanghai - and, throughout lunch, he repeatedly grew bored with
talking about himself. He was persistently inquisitive.

He tried to steer the conversation towards China or journalism. Or the more
expensive restaurants he might have chosen had he really thought about it: "It
really should have been La Gavroche or Chez Nico," he says, but then dismissing
that idea with a wave of the hand, he says: "They're a bit truffle-obsessed at
Chez Nico."

Such moments might suggest that Russell Beale is what is popularly known as "a
luvvie", which he sees as a term of abuse: "We all hate it. It is not right. It
is demeaning. You do not call nurses angels or police pigs."

Why, then, does he think actors are so regularly called luvvies?

"There is nothing mysterious about acting. But, to the outside world, what we do
can look absolutely ridiculous."

There is a suspicion that for an actor like Russell Beale, the luvvie tag is
particularly aggravating.

His acting, after all, can be expansive, theatrical and foppish. Or, to use
another term that grates on his nerves, camp. It is hard to resist the word,
particularly if you saw him earlier this year spinning around on stage in his
satin shoes, fuchsia suit and powdered Regency wig in the part of George IV in
Battle Royal.

Still, he says, he always feels disappointed when people call his performances
camp. "It is the soft underbelly of my acting."

It is an appropriate enough moment to bring an end to a long lunch. But from his
final flourish, it seems Russell Beale is genuinely thrilled at being treated to
lunch.

And I don't think he was acting.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 6, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 2

NATIONAL NEWS: Troubleshooter prepares for assault on Mount Everest of corporate
rescues: Christopher Adams and Ruth Sullivan report on the 'company doctor'
drafted in to administer bitter medicine to the Dome

BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER ADAMS and RUTH SULLIVAN

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 573 words

David James, one of Britain's top corporate rescue specialists, is coming to the
rescue of the Millennium Dome.

The dapper 63-year-old troubleshooter is no ordinary "company doctor". He has a
long list of complex assignments to his name, including unravelling the Iraqi
supergun affair for MI6 and negotiating the release of British engineering
consultants in Libya.

But the Dome, he said, would be a challenge. Asked why he had agreed to take
over the attraction, he said: "Like Everest, it's there. You've got to climb
it."

As executive chairman - unpaid - he will have overall financial responsibility
for the Dome until it is handed over to Nomura International, the Japanese
group, at the end of the year.

Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, the Dome's slick chief executive, has been stripped of this
role after a critical independent report by PwC, the professional services firm.

Yesterday's Pounds 47m lottery handout and the resignation of David Quarmby as
chairman were the latest dismal episodes in the Dome fiasco. It has been deeply
embarrassing for a government that loaded high expectations onto the attraction.

The fizz, however, proved to be nothing more than that. Mr James disclosed that
the operators now expected only 4.5m paying customers to turn up. "The problem
that has beset the Dome is doing cash forecasts going forward," he said.

His comments suggested that the projected number of non-paying visitors had been
revised upwards from previous estimates, while paying visitor numbers had been
revised downwards.

The PwC report identified "serious failings" in New Millennium Experience
Company's financial management. This is likely to increase pressure on ministers
to bear more responsibility for the appointment of its chief executive.

Not only had NMEC failed to forecast cashflow accurately in financial statements
submitted to the Millennium Commission, it had also not set aside enough to
settle contractual liabilities associated with closure.

Had the commission not provided more money, then the Dome would have been
insolvent immediately.

"Pierre-Yves has done a good job of controlling operating costs," said Mr James.

But he added that Mr Gerbeau "would be the first to agree that the whole school
of corporate finance issues is not his thing . . . we will make a good pair."

The extra funding leaves Mr Gerbeau with egg on his face. After a previous
bailout this year, he had said it would be "absolutely the last time" he would
go cap-in-hand for more money. The grant was the third since May, when the Dome
was thrown a Pounds 29m lifeline.

That cost NMEC the resignation of its previous chairman, Bob Ayling. In August,
the Dome was given an advance of Pounds 43m to save it from early closure. This
came from the Pounds 53m allocated to the company from the Dome's sale to
Nomura.

Mr James is well qualified to steer the Dome through the rest of the year.
Parachuted into Dan Air on a rescue mission, he also helped structure the rescue
of the Lloyd's insurance market and uncovered fraud at the collapsed Eagle
Trust.

He is also former director of Ford Motor, where he was given his first break as
a "company doctor".

But he has attracted controversy over his rescue methods, which he is quick to
defend. At Eagle Trust, shareholders were disgruntled when he wound up the
business, retrieving Pounds 116m for creditors and leaving shareholders with
only 1p per share.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 4, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

LEADER: Hostage taking

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 425 words

Financial appeasement has had woeful results in the Philippine hostage crisis.
First, Malaysia paid up to free its citizens, then Libya paid a rumoured Dollars
1m each to get several French and German hostages out of the clutches of the Abu
Sayyaf group of Muslim rebels, and now the latter have snatched an American and
are demanding Dollars 10m for his release.

The Europeans blame the Malaysians for starting the rot, and the US is now
privately blaming the Europeans for letting Libya be their proxy ransom-payer,
so whetting the kidnappers' appetite for hostages. Clearly, a more united stand
against hostage-taking is needed.

Such a stand was achieved against hijacking, a dramatic form of mass kidnapping.
Hijacking proliferated in the early 1970s. But as realisation of the dangers
inherent in such air piracy began to spread, it was outlawed in a UN convention.
This removed the possibility of hijackers justifying their action on political
grounds, while tighter airport security helped screen them out.

A similar 1979 UN convention criminalised hostage-taking in general, but did not
ban ransom payments. Kidnapping for money is still rife around the world. Joseph
Estrada, the Filipino president, came to power pledging to reduce kidnapping.
But in lawless parts of his country it is even a regular way of settling
business disputes: grab your partner and demand ransom as compensation.

The first thing to recognise is there are no easy answers in hostage situations.
A total legal ban on paying ransom may be impractical and possibly inhuman.
Colombia passed such a ban, but was subsequently required by its courts to amend
it to allow ransom payments by relatives, though not by companies or
organisations.

But hypocrisy is harder to condone, and the European governments involved in the
Philippine crisis come very close to that. These governments were complicit in
Libya's ransom pay-outs, when the guidelines they agreed within the European
Union and the Group of Eight on "best practice" in hostage situations preclude
such payments. It is a poor showing for the EU's vaunted common foreign policy.

Ruling out ransoms as a matter of policy should not automatically rule in
military force as the solution to hostage crises. This is particularly the case
with the Filipino armed forces, whose incompetence in less demanding military
operations does not create confidence in their ability to mount successful
hostage rescues. Force is obviously a last resort: the first weapons to use on
kidnappers are talk and time.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 2, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Hostage-takers demand Dollars 10m ransom for US
citizen

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 226 words

DATELINE: MANILA

Muslim rebels on Jolo island, in the southern Philippines, have demanded a
ransom of Dollars 10m (Pounds 6.7m) for the release of a US citizen.

A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf rebel group that captured Jeffrey Schilling, 24,
on Monday announced the demand in talks with a government negotiator. The group
also demanded 5m pesos (Pounds 74,625) immediately as a goodwill gesture.

The spokesman referred neither to an earlier demand for the freeing of Islamic
fundamentalists in US jails nor to a call for North Korea, China, Iraq and Libya
to be involved in negotiations.

He said Mr Schilling would not be harmed; earlier this week the rebels had
threatened to kill him. Neither the Philippine nor US government responded to
the demand, but it is unlikely to be accepted, as Washington has insisted that
it will not pay ransom to a terrorist group.

The US, which has ruled out third-party mediation, has asked Manila to lead
efforts to secure Mr Schilling's release and has not ruled out the use of force
to free him.

The Philippines government has said it is looking at all options to secure Mr
Schilling's release but rejected the rebel demand for the involvement of
Chinese, Iraqi, Libyan and North Korean negotiators.

In Beijing the foreign ministry said that it had no intention of getting
involved in the Philippine hostage drama.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 1, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: US blames allies for holding policy to ransom

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER and HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 820 words

DATELINE: MANILA, WASHINGTON and LONDON

A spate of hostage-taking in the southern Philippines has revealed sharp
differences between the placatory style of the Europeans and the uncompromising
stance of the US.

Growing disquiet in Washington at European handling of the hostage situation has
led to ill-concealed tension and recriminations over the apparent link between
ransom payments for European hostages held for four months and the snatching of
a US citizen this week.

Yesterday Ronaldo Zamora, the executive secretary to President Joseph Estrada of
the Philippines, confirmed that the US had not asked Manila to preclude the use
of military force to free Jeffrey Schilling, a US citizen captured on the island
of Jolo on Monday.

Separatist Muslim rebels of the Abu Sayyaf group captured 21 mostly foreign
hostages from a Malaysian diving resort in April and took them to their jungle
camp on the Jolo. They then captured three French journalists who went to report
the story.

After a series of staggered releases, the last after negotiations and
intervention from Libya at the weekend, the main rebel faction are left holding
six Europeans and one Filipino.

Germany, France and Finland have in recent months put pressure on Manila not to
use force to free several of their nationals. Instead, huge ransoms have
allegedly been paid for the releases mediated by Libya.

But critics argue that this stance has encouraged further hostage-taking,
possibly even that of Mr Schilling. A western diplomat in Manila said: "No one
is really denying ransoms were paid. This puts our citizens at risk of more
kidnappings."

"We're very concerned European allies of ours are encouraging activities that
they should be condemn-ing," the diplomat added. William Bish, the head of a
security risk consultancy in Manila, added: "The Europeans have encouraged a
kidnapping industry."

While US officials have refrained from public criticism of the efforts to free
other hostages, Washington has continued to make clear its strong opposition to
the paying of ransom or making concessions to the demands of hostage-takers.
"Doing so only encourages additional terrorism," said Phil Reeker, a deputy
spokesman for the State Department.

"The US policy is very clear. We do not make deals with terrorists. We will not
pay ransom. We will not change policies. We will not release prisoners or make
any other concessions that reward hostage-taking," Mr Reeker said.

Diplomats from the three European governments deny that ransom was paid and
argue that public opinion in their home countries dictated the non-violence
stance.

There were also European doubts about whether the Philippine security forces
could carry out an assault on the rebel camp without harming the hostages.

The Philippine military and police have much closer ties to the US than to
European countries. "It's quite possible Washington will offer logistical
assistance to Manila," said Mr Bish, a former senior official with a US
government agency in Asia.

Amid further signs of a shift away from the European approach in the hostage
crisis, senior Philippine government leaders, Congress representatives and
church figures yesterday called for a tougher - possibly military - approach
towards the Abu Sayyaf.

Orlando Mercado, the Philippine defence secretary, said: "This thing has become
a revolving door, hostages coming in and out. One of these days we should close
the door."

The apparent acceptance by France and Germany of Libyan ransoms paid on their
behalf could indirectly contravene principles discussed by European governments
with their partners in the Group of Eight leading industrialised countries.

Two years ago Britain used its chairmanship of the G8 to convene a working group
of officials on the issue of hostage-taking, in the wake of a spate of
kidnappings in Chechnya. The result, a UK official said, was agreement on "best
practice" in such situations, including refusal to pay ransom.

Britain was discussing these principles with its EU partners, he said, though
this fell short of trying to get the EU to adopt a formal position on
hostage-taking as part of its common foreign policy.

The official noted that the G8 consensus was between only civil servants, not
ministers, adding that Britain would not pass judgment on the behaviour of Paris
or Berlin.

"We are keeping our heads down on this, because it is so sensitive (to the
governments involved)," said an EU official.

Yesterday it was left to Tom Skipper, a US embassy spokesman, to appeal for Mr
Schilling's release on humanitarian grounds. "He has health problems and
requires prescription medicine," he said, without giving details.

A senior Philippine hostage negotiator said he had been reassured by the Abu
Sayyaf leader holding the remaining six European hostages that Mr Schilling's
abduction - by a different rebel faction - would not delay the release of the
Europeans.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 31, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Hostage-takers 'prepared to talk'

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 348 words

DATELINE: MANILA

A faction of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group said yesterday it was "prepared to talk"
about conditions for the release of a US national kidnapped on Monday.

A spokesman said the hostage, named as Jeffrey Schilling, 24, from Oakland,
California, would be killed if neg-otiations - on as-yet unspecified political
demands - were not fruitful.

The US embassy in Manila confirmed in a statement that it had "credible
evidence" that Mr Schilling had been abducted. The US called for the immediate
unconditional release of Mr Schilling and other hostages being held on Jolo in a
separate Abu Sayyaf kidnapping.

Abu Sayyaf is a loose alliance of Muslim separatists and bandits. The ostensibly
more ideological faction holding Mr Schilling killed two Filipino hostages when
its political demands were not met earlier this year .

However, in a statement the embassy said the US "does not make deals with
terrorists" and would not be paying a ransom "or making any concessions that
reward hostage-taking". It added that an investigative team had been sent to
Zamboanga, a city near Jolo island.

The US has criticised Libya for allegedly paying up to Dollars 12m (Pounds 8m)
in ransom for the release of western hostages on Jolo island. Libya, which
denies paying any ransom, has offered to mediate in Mr Schilling's release. A US
official refused to comment.

Ronaldo Zamora, executive secretary to Joseph Estrada, the Philippine president,
said his government would lead negotiations for Mr Schilling's release. Manila
also said it hoped the abduction would not delay the release of the other
hostages.

Mr Zamora signalled stronger resistance to paying a ransom. "We cannot go on
like this. Otherwise we will be doing exactly what those against ransom have
been saying. We are just setting ourselves up for more problems in the future."

Mr Schilling had been in the Philippines since March and had recently been
married to a Filipino woman who, according to reports, is related to a Abu
Sayyaf member. A convert to Islam, he was on Jolo when abd- ucted, according to
his wife.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 31, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Libya seeks to refine its image: Colonel Gadaffi's attempt
to improve the country's profile has attracted European companies to the oil and
gas:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 1041 words

Not long ago, Libya was a pariah state run by a quirky and dangerous leader.
These days, Colonel Muammer Gadaffi is promoting himself as a mediator in
conflicts and using his past links with rebels to help liberate western hostages
in the Philippines.

Col Gadaffi's surprising makeover is the most visible aspect of Libya's
rehabilitation in the international community. But just as important is the
growing interest that European companies are showing in the country's business
potential, especially because rival US companies are prohibited from investing
in Libya under existing US sanctions.

European trade missions to Tripoli have flourished since the United Nations
suspended sanctions last year following the handover of two Libyan suspects
charged with the 1988 bombing of a Pan-Am airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland.

Much of the interest is in Libya's oil and gas sector. Tripoli recently opened
up vast areas of land for exploration as part of its plan to raise oil
production from a current 1.4m barrels a day to 2m b/d over the next five years.
It also unveiled a Dollars 35bn infrastructure investment plan and wants 40 per
cent of it to be financed by foreigners.

Foreign companies are so optimistic that Robertson, a UK consultancy, is billing
Libya as the "hottest prospect for new exploration and production success".
Lasmo's 1997 discovery of the Elephant field, the biggest oil find in 15 years,
is encouraging other investors. A Dollars 5.6bn oil and gas development project
signed by Italy's ENI, meanwhile, has highlighted Libya's natural gas potential.

But sceptics say the rush may be premature. Given his erratic behaviour and his
need to maintain a firm grip on economic power, Col Gadaffi's recent pledges of
liberalisation are unlikely to materialise. One of the biggest problems is his
deep mistrust of the private sector, which he believes could create a power base
capable of challenging his rule. That explains why he has sent "purification
committees" - anti-corruption squads - to close private businesses during the
past decade, even though he has also encouraged private sector activities at
times.

More recently, after officials announced big investment plans and pledged
economic reforms, Col Gadaffi displayed more of his erratic behaviour: in March
he got rid of most government ministers and devolved their powers to "people's
assemblies". His real aim was to consolidate power in his own hands while
blaming economic problems on the administration rather than the leadership. "In
the short term the result has been total fog and a lack of decision-making,"
says Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Tripoli who now promotes
UK-Libyan business ties. "And there hasn't been much in terms of economic
reforms."

Curiously, however, Col Gadaffi has followed a more pragmatic and consistent
attitude towards the oil and gas sector. At the height of Libya's revolutionary
fervour in the 1970s and 1980s, he gave foreign companies - mainly Americans - a
share of hydrocarbons projects.

With oil and gas receipts accounting for 95 per cent of Libya's foreign exchange
revenues, rational handling of the sector is crucial to advancing the colonel's
main goals - the survival of his regime and overturning the country's pariah
image.

"He has recognised that it's the principal source of revenue and that he needs
foreign investment and tech nological help - this has been a constant in Libyan
policy since the revolution," says Raad al-Kadiri, an analyst at
Washington-based Petroleum Finance Co.

The UN sanctions, which were imposed in 1992 and included a ban on travel and on
the sale of oil equipment as well as a freeze on some Libyan assets abroad,
thwarted Col Gadaffi's plans to develop the oil and gas sector. The resulting
cash crunch was exacerbated by mismanagement and white elephant projects such as
the Dollars 20bn Great Man-made River, designed to transport water from the
southern desert to the north. The Dollars 45bn state-dominated economy has also
suffered from the colonel's suspicions of the private sector.

In spite of the setbacks, Col Gadaffi appears commited to more rational
behaviour in the hydrocarbons sector. But that will not necessarily lead to a
smooth or transparent process. Bureaucratic delays in Libya are legendary.

More important, diplomats warn that Col Gadaffi will try to use the awarding of
contracts to maximise his political gains. He wants European governments to back
a permanent lifting of UN sanctions - the embargo is only suspended to ensure
Libyan co-operation in the Lockerbie trial. He also expects European interest in
Libya to lead US oil companies to lobby harder for a lifting of US sanctions.

"Gadaffi looks at companies not only by business proposals but also by country,"
says a European diplomat. "This is why the Europeans are falling over each other
to get there."

European oil executives say that regardless of Libya's ultimate goals,
opportunity for oil and gas investment there is greater because US oil companies
are out of the market. And remaining US sanctions on European companies
investing in Libya are no longer seen as a serious threat.

"US oil companies feel they are missing out in a big way, and companies like us
are exploiting the fact that our number-one competitor is not there," says a
European executive.

Some western officials, however, worry that government encouragement of business
ties with Libya could become a source of embarrassment, especially for the UK,
if the Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie trial are found guilty or if Col Gadaffi
fails to co-operate by sending witnesses to the court.

Moreover, the Libyan leader may have stopped backing terrorist groups but other
actions continue to raise concern. In January the UK admitted that a Libyan
consignment of spare parts for Scud missiles had been intercepted at Gatwick
airport six months before.

"Gadaffi is enjoying playing European companies against each other," says one
European diplomat. "But maybe some countries got carried away with the potential
commercial game and maybe it has clouded their minds from the bigger picture,
especially that we have not yet seen the result of the business potential."

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 30, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: More delay over CIA telegrams NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 179 words

LOCKERBIE TRIAL

More delay over CIA telegrams

The trial of two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing last night faced
further delay following demands for the release of more classified intelligence
documents from the US. The defence team urged the court to request from the CIA
further telegrams relating to interviews with former spy Abdul Majid Giaka, a
key prosecution witness. During a second day of wrangling over the CIA
documents, the team said the existence of further telegrams had come to light
and these should be disclosed to both the Crown and the defence. Presiding judge
Lord Sutherland advised that Lord Advocate Colin Boyd contact the CIA and
request the release of the missing telegrams.

Last week the defence team claimed versions of CIA documents it had seen were
more heavily edited than those seen by the prosecution. Mr Boyd contacted the
CIA and the defence was given access to the same, less-censored versions last
Friday. The debate over the documents delayed the appearance of Mr Giaka, who
was expected to give evidence last week.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 30, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 2

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Muslim rebels take US citizen hostage

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF and HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 560 words

DATELINE: MANILA and LONDON

The Philippines confirmed last night a claim by Muslim separatist rebels that
they had kidnapped a US citizen and taken him to Jolo island, scene of a
separate, four-month hostage saga.

The confirmation came as six western hostages released in Jolo this week arrived
in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, for a celebration. Libya, which played a vital
mediating role in the hostages' release, is keen to use that to improve its
international standing. It mounted an elaborate media event to mark their
arrival, although Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, failed to attend as
scheduled.

In Manila Robert Aventajado, the Philippine government's chief hostage
negotiator, confirmed the new abduction, adding that the captive, named as
Jeffrey Craig Edwards Schilling, 24, "was abducted in Zambo-anga" - a city on
Mindanao island - on Monday.

The new abduction is a severe blow to the Philippine government, which this week
was hoping to see the end of the earlier Jolo hostage crisis. Seven hostages,
including six Europeans, remain in captivity but are expected to be released
soon.

Analysts and some western diplomats have criticised the huge ransoms allegedly
paid by Libya for the release of the Jolo captives, arguing that they will fuel
further kidnappings.

"As great the joy is at the release, so is the discomfort and the ways and means
that it occurred," Karl Lamers, the foreign policy spokesman for Germany's
conservative opposition Christian Democrats, said.

But France thanked Libya for the release of the three Frenchwomen. Charles
Josselin, the French co-operation minister, who arrived in

Libya yesterday, said Tripoli's mediation could only improve relations.
Similarly both Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and Joschka Fischer, the German
foreign minister, acknowledged Libya's role in the release of the six, including
a German teacher, Werner Wallert.

Tripoli has been normalising relations with Europe since last year's handover of
two Libyan suspects charged with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, a move that led to
a suspension of United Nations sanctions. After several months in captivity, the
six western hostages were expected to celebrate their release in a ceremony held
in barracks near the Gadaffi residence that was destroyed by the 1986 US
bombings and amid pictures of children and elderly people wounded in the raids.
US aircraft bombed Libya in retaliation for Tripoli's alleged involvement in the
bombing of a West Berlin discotheque.

Despite his anti-US rhetoric, Col Gadaffi wants to improve relations with
Washington. He will no doubt attempt to secure the release of the American
hostage. The US, however, may not be as welcoming of Libyan involvement as
European governments.

It was unclear yesterday whether Mr Schilling's kidnappers were working with
those holding the other captives or whether the release of those hostages would
be affected. A man identifying himself as Abu Sabaya, an Abu Sayyaf spokesman,
announced Mr Schilling's abduction in a radio interview. He said Mr Schilling
"may be executed" unless certain unspecified demands were met. He said the
demands, to be presented in three days, would include the release of Muslim
militants jailed in the US.

The kidnappers had targeted a US citizen, Mr Sabaya said, adding that "one
American was equivalent to 10 European", without elaborating.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 29, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Libya claims credit as hostages freed: Concern grows
over ransom question as westerners freed in Philippines fly to Tripoli

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 475 words

DATELINE: MANILA

The six western hostages released this week from a Muslim rebel camp in the
southern Philippines left the country yesterday on their way to a reception in
Tripoli today by Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi.

Before they left, the five captives released on Sunday were joined by Carel
Strydom, a South African hostage freed yesterday. Mr Strydom's wife Monique was
released at the weekend.

The constellation of secret deals - apparently involving hefty ransoms - which
appear to be bringing the four-month Jolo hostage crisis to an end dictated the
bizarre diversion to Libya to acknowledge publicly Tripoli's role in securing
the hostages' freedom.

Six western hostages, from Germany, Finland and France, and one Filipino captive
remain with the Abu Sayyaf gunmen. They are likely to be released this week,
negotiators said yesterday.

While officials in the Philippines and diplomats from the hostages' home
countries express relief the painful saga appears to be ending, wider
international concerns are surfacing.

These centre on the ransoms allegedly paid and the implications of Libya
claiming credit for mediating an end to the crisis.

"There's absolutely no doubt Libya has paid a huge ransom, and it's alarming
that the Philippines and western governments are turning a blind eye to this,"
said Manuel Mogato, a specialist writer on security issues.

Both Tripoli and Manila deny repeated reports - sourced to government
negotiators - that a Libyan foundation paid Dollars 1m (Pounds 600,000) for each
of the 12 western hostages held until last Sunday.

The foundation only admits offering to aid development projects in
rebel-controlled areas.

However, evidence indicates ransoms have been paid. Philippine army intelligence
acknowledged this month that approximately Dollars 5.5m was paid by unidentified
sources in June and July for the earlier release of the nine Malaysian hostages
and one German captive.

Robert Aventajado, the government's chief negotiator admitted for the first time
at the weekend that Malaysia paid a ransom for its releases.

Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, also openly admits paying an unspecified
ransom for the release this month of its correspondent Andreas Lorenz from
Jolo-based kidnappers.

"No hostage incident involving the Abu Sayyaf has ever ended without ransom
being paid," said Mr Mogato.

Rajab Azzarouq, Libya's envoy in the hostage negotiations, denies his government
expects a diplomatic payback from its mediation efforts.

However he admitted last week that France, Germany and Finland had urged Tripoli
to intervene, adding that "Europe needs Libya more than Libya needs Europe".

Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, on Sunday thanked Libya for its
mediation role, but otherwise, European diplomats have maintained an awkward
silence on Libya's role.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 29, 2000, Tuesday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Hostages acknowledge Gadaffi

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 42 words

Hostages acknowledge Gadaffi

The six western hostages released from a Muslim rebel camp in the Philippines
headed for a reception in Tripoli hosted by Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi, in
acknowledgement of his role in securing their freedom. Page 4

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 28, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Philippine rebels release five hostages

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 384 words

DATELINE: MANILA

Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines yesterday released five of their
western captives, in the most significant breakthrough to date in the four-month
hostage saga.

The four remaining women hostages - two French, a South African and a Lebanese -
and a German who was the eldest of the male captives were handed over to
government emissaries in the Abu Sayyaf jungle camp on Jolo island where the
hostages had been held.

Roberto Aventajado, the government's chief negotiator, earlier said a "global
agreement" had been reached with the rebels for the release of all the hostages
in the next few days, but gave no details.

The hostage crisis has been embarrassing for Manila, which appeared incapable of
ending the saga until Libya stepped up its involvement as mediator earlier this
month.

Yesterday's release was the result of an agreement mediated by Libya almost two
weeks ago, negotiators said.

Libya, which is hoping to improve its international standing, is understood to
be paying up to Dollars 12m in ransom, in addition to development aid for
rebel-controlled regions.

Both Tripoli and Manila deny that they have gived any ransom.

Those freed yesterday were flown to Cebu in the central Philippines, from where
they are due today to fly on to Libya before returning to their home countries.

Another of the remaining seven western hostages, possibly Carel Strydom, a South
African, may be released today, Mr Aventajado said.

Philippine President Joseph Estrada welcomed the releases, but said his
negotiators would not rest until all hostages had been freed.

The released hostages, some in tears, carried their few possessions in rice
sacks. They appeared shocked and were subdued, as all left relatives or friends
behind with the rebels.

Those released included Werner Wallert, 57, of Germany, Lebanese-born Marie
Moarbes, Sonia Wendling of France and Monique Strydom of South Africa.

Maryse Burgot, the fifth hostage released, is one of three French journalists
captured last month while reporting on the crisis. Her two colleagues remain in
captivity.

The other hostages were kidnapped from a Malaysian resort in April.

The agreement had envisaged the release of all the western hostages together,
but an attempt on August 19 to achieve this collapsed.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 26, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: You can fool some of the people...: Politicians the world
over can be strangely naive when it comes to covering up blunders. John
Thornhill lists a few tall tales that the public could not swallow:

BYLINE: By JOHN THORNHILL

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 645 words

It is a lesson learnt at school. The teacher asks for your homework and you
reply that the dog has eaten your exercise book. But it seems that some
politicians - and their aides - never grow out of the habit of inventing
improbable excuses.

The latest example was provided this week by Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's
president, who told reporters that Mega-wati Sukarnoputri, his vice-president,
could not attend an important meeting because she had gone home to take a bath.

"She said 'I haven't taken a shower, I'd like to have a bath first.' You can't
stop a woman like that," said Mr Wahid, perhaps hoping to conceal the friction
between them by playing on Mrs Megawati's reputation for self-indulgence.

But few were fooled. "Saying that the vice-president could not attend because
she had to bathe caused everyone to ask serious questions. There must be a big
problem between the president and the vice-president," says Dimyati Hartono, a
senior aide in Mrs Megawati's party. As so often in such cases Mr Wahid's
attempt to divert attention only succeeded in arousing interest.

It is understandable that politicians may sometimes seek to sugarcoat
unpalatable truths. One only has to think of Harold Wilson assuring Britons that
the pound in their pockets was not worth any less following sterling's
devaluation in 1967. Or Japan's Emperor Hirohito telling his compatriots in 1945
that: "The war situation has developed, not necessarily to Japan's advantage."

But a reputation for eccentricity can certainly help the credibility of an
excuse. Such was the case with Boris Yeltsin, Russia's former president, when in
1994 he failed to emerge from his aircraft at Shannon airport to meet Albert
Reynolds, the then Irish prime minister. The official excuse was that Mr Yeltsin
had been sleeping and that his bodyguards did not want to wake him. But many
suspected that Russia's president, who loved a tipple, had in fact drunk the
in-flight mini-bar dry. It was only later that Alexander Korzhakov, Mr Yeltsin's
confidante, revealed that the president had in fact had a minor heart attack.

Libya's mercurial Colonel Muammer Gadaffi has also succeeded in shrugging off
potentially embarrassing incidents with bizarre excuses. In April, Romano Prodi,
president of the European Commission, emerged from a meeting with the Libyan
president to deliver the startling news that an Israeli official had been
invited to Tripoli. But Col Qadaffi squashed the story. "This is an April Fools'
lie," he said.

Other politicians have tried to play the innocent when caught out - with varying
degrees of success. Bjorn Rosengren, former head of the Swedish white collar
union, was forced to resign in 1994 after he paid a SKr55,600 (Dollars 6,000)
bill in a strip club with his union credit card. Mr Rosengren initially tried to
bluff out the scandal by saying he had not realised he was in a sex club - in
spite of the presence of scantily clad women. The incident has not done any
long-term damage to Mr Rosengren's career, however. He is currently Sweden's
industry minister.

Ronald Reagan, the former US president, was more successful in playing the naif,
skilfully extricating himself from the Iran-Contra scandal with his disarming
candour. "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for
hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true but the
facts and evidence tell me it is not," he said, in what must surely rank as one
of the most elegant justifications for lying.

Another former US president, Richard Nixon, also bamboozled critics for years
with convoluted excuses. "I know you believe you understand what you think I
said, but I'm not sure you realise that what you've heard is not what I meant,"
he once told a baffled interviewer. But, as invariably happens, Tricky Dicky
eventually got caught out.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 25, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Leaders warn Estrada on hostage debate

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 424 words

The leaders of Germany, France, Finland and South Africa have urged Joseph
Estrada, the Philippine president, to curb action and public debate related to
the hostage crisis on the island of Jolo, saying such activity could jeopardise
the hostages' "safe and early release".

The comments were contained in a letter to Mr Estrada from Gerhard Schroder, the
German chancellor, Tarja Halonen, the Finnish president, and Jacques Chirac, the
French president. It was endorsed by President Thabo Mbeki of South African,
according to a Finnish official.

Nationals from the four countries are among the 10 hostages who have been held
by Muslim rebels on Jolo for almost 18 weeks. Three French journalists have been
held since July.

The letter, dated August 22, was given to the media yesterday by Mr Estrada's
office. Both its publication by Manila and the sensitive nature of its contents
are likely to fuel tensions between the Philippines and the four other
governments.

The letter was considered confidential by the European governments, Finnish and
German officials said. It states: "The safe and early release of the hostages is
the first priority. Their release must not be jeopardised by any action or any
announcements the abductors on the island of Jolo could perceive as a reason not
to implement a negotiated solution to this drama."

The letter reflects concern in Europe and South Africa that public discussion of
the hostage crisis in Manila - especially of possible military attacks on the
Abu Sayyaf rebels when the hostages are freed - is delaying the captives'
release.

This follows the failure last Saturday of a high-profile attempt to free all the
hostages. Several senior members of the Philippine Congress had called for
attacks on the rebels once the crisis was over. The rebels cited fears of such
attacks as a reason for not releasing the hostages.

Libya, which helped mediate Saturday's attempt, has also criticised the comments
by Philippine politicians.

Manila-based European diplomats earlier this week raised the same concerns as
are contained in the letter, according to Philippine officials. Congress members
have responded angrily. Senator Rodolfo Biazon said: "These foreign
representatives have no right to question what we say here in the country."

A spokesman for Mr Estrada said the president considered the letter to be a
"constructive statement of support". There was no comment on how he would
respond.

The letter thanks Libya for its help and urges Tripoli's continued involvement.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 25, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Clinton leads diplomatic dance to change Opec's tune

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN, HILLARY DURGIN and ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 728 words

DATELINE: HOUSTON, WASHINGTON and LONDON

President Bill Clinton's decision to make US concerns over high oil prices a key
issue on his trip to Nigeria is one of many steps that the US is taking in a
diplomatic dance to encourage Opec to act to curb prices at its September 10
meeting in Vienna.

With US crude oil inventories hovering at a 24-year low, and product inventories
also at historically low levels, oil prices have increased by about 50 per cent
over the past year to about Dollars 32 per barrel. The US and it allies are
concerned that the impact of high oil prices could hurt recovering Asian
economies and, at home, trigger higher heating oil prices at a time of low
supplies and strong demand in the coming winter season.

Mr Clinton intends to press the case in talks with Olusegun Obasanjo, the
Nigerian president. In comments on Wednesday Mr Clinton said he believed Opec
nations should increase production with the goal of bringing prices down into
"the low to mid-20s".

Sandy Berger, national security adviser, added that Mr Clinton would pursue the
issue with many oil producing countries. "There is a common interest here in
reaching a price level that does not kill the kind the economic activity which
generates the demand for energy," he said.

The decision to raise the issue in Nigeria indicates how sensitive oil prices
have become in the US presidential election season. Nigeria, the fifth largest
source of US oil imports, has been unable to produce even up to its current Opec
quota. Further, the country has little influence on Opec decisions. But with
rising petrol prices aggravating US drivers, "the administration wants to appear
active in trying to bring down the price of oil", says James Burkhard, an oil
market analyst with Cambridge Energy Associates.

Antonio M. Szabo, the president of Stone Bond, a Houston energy consulting firm,
said: "This is a charade. But the Clinton administration says we have to do the
charade to get the result."

Despite a 700,000 barrel-per-day production increase agreed to by Opec in June
and the announcement by Saudi Arabia in July that it would increase production
by 500,000 barrels per day, oil prices have continued to rise. Analysts said
that only about half the promised extra Saudi output has made it to the market,
with the Saudis claiming there were no takers and buyers insisting that the
kingdom refused to show flexibility on prices.

The US is believed to have kept the pressure up, with reports of a recent letter
from Mr Clinton to Crown Prince Abdullah. But analysts said Riyadh has no
interest in selling the additional oil at a big discount, partly out of fear of
depressing the market and losing control over any slide.

The US and the international oil markets are hoping Opec will act to redress the
situation at its forthcoming meeting. Saudi Arabia is widely considered to be
the key player within Opec, which would be able to increase production and
mitigate prices. With more than 2m barrels of spare capacity, the country holds
the lion's share of Opec's estimated 2.5m extra capacity.

But reaching an agreement under which Saudi Arabia would increase production is
a delicate diplomatic matter, particularly as Opec faces deep divisions.

A vital economic challenge to reaching agreement within Opec is that certain
members, including Venezuela and Iran, would like to maintain higher oil prices.

Politically, there is the danger of appearing to be bending too easily to US
pressure, particularly among countries such as Iraq, Libya and Iran, whose
relations with the US are strained.

Saudi rulers, too, are sensitive to perceptions that their oil decisions are
influenced by the US, especially at a time when Arab opinion is critical of Mr
Clinton's policies in the Middle East peace process. The Arab world reacted with
dismay when the US blamed the failure of last month's Camp David summit on
Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.

"Whatever diplomacy the US believes is necessary between them and our allies
they should be very quiet," said Lawrence Goldstein, the president of Pira
Energy Group, a New York-based energy consulting firm. "It's not going to be an
easy sell."

However, he expect in the end that Opec will act in the knowledge that oil at
Dollars 30 a barrel could undermine economic recovery in the Far East and
US-Saudi relations. Editorial Comment, Page 16

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 23, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Kidnap talks to resume NEWS DIGEST:

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 142 words

DATELINE: MANILA

PHILIPPINES HOSTAGES

Kidnap talks to resume

Negotiators said yesterday talks with the Muslim rebels holding international
hostages in the southern Philippines will resume later this week. Sources close
to the negotiators said Libya had agreed to pay up to Dollars 12m (Pounds 8m) in
ransom demanded by the kidnappers.

Last Saturday a high-profile attempt to secure the release of all the hostages,
including nine European and South African captives and one Filipino, collapsed.
Three French journalists, seized last month, are also being held.

Chief negotiator Robert Aventajado and Libyan envoy Rajab Azzarouq, said
yesterday they had worked out a new formula for the negotiations, which includes
the possible release of the hostages in batches, rather than as a single group,
as previously demanded by Manila. Hugh Williamson, Manila

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 23, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

THE ARTS: Faraway love outshines the dreadful old roue: David Murray in Salzburg
enjoys Kaija Saariaho's new opera far more than the unfortunate 'Don Giovanni'

BYLINE: By DAVID MURRAY

SECTION: THE ARTS; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 755 words

DATELINE: SALZBURG

Two round glass towers stand at either end of the vast stage. Between them lies
a sea, for the whole stage is flooded with water; nothing else, though light is
refracted on the wall in constantly changing patterns. One tower is the abode of
the 12th-century troubadour Jaufre Rudel in Aquitaine, the other of his faraway
love, Clemence, Countess of Tripoli.

Every summer the Salzburg Festival mounts one opera in the Felsenreitschule, the
old "rocky riding school" - a formidable challenge to producers and designers
alike. This year the opera is Kaija Saariaho's new L'Amour de loin, for which
Peter Sellars and his designer George Tsypin have met the challenge superbly.

The action is minimal. In the first act, a Pilgrim returning from Tripoli tells
Jaufre of a lady who may be his ideal love; in the second the Pilgrim advises
her that the troubadour is writing songs about her, and in the third reports
back to Jaufre. By the fourth act Jaufre has set out on a sea journey to meet
her at last - which he does in the fifth, just as he expires. She decides to go
to a convent.

Apart from the pilgrim go-between's travelling back and forth, for three acts
the only movement is vertical. Jaufre goes restlessly up and down his tower in a
lift, while Clemence perpetually ascends and descends a spiral staircase in
hers. The boat-journey across the stage, infinitely slow, is nevertheless
dramatic. At one side is a chorus of Jaufre's old companions (the excellent
Arnold Schoenberg Chor), commenting and more generally enriching Saariaho's
gentle but sumptuous score.

The five acts of L'Amour de loin take two hours, without an interval. Much
shorter than Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise,a few years back - also produced
by Sellars, conducted by Kent Nagano and with Dawn Upshaw in a leading role;
that was the inspiration for Saariaho's piece. The role of Clemence is perfectly
conceived for Upshaw's naturally radiant soprano. Another American, the baritone
Dwayne Croft, matches her eloquently as Jaufre. The Pilgrim is the Czech mezzo
Dagmar Peckova, sonorously tender and concerned. L'Amour de loin is a strange
idyll in suspended time: not, certainly, a repertoire piece, but a rare and
rather magical experience.

This year's Don Giovanni is no such thing, as revived in Margherita Palli's
bleak, boring sets and Luca Ronconi's heavy-handed production. The "concept", or
gimmick, is to stretch the action out over many years, so that by the end
everybody is aged and frail, and Giovanni a macabre old roue. It is atriumph of
miscasting, starting with Valery Gergiev on the podium. He cannot help but be
Romantically interesting, but to western ears he is no Mozartean: some
desperately slow tempi, much fussy emphasising of inner orchestral parts.
Ferruccio Furlanetto, who used to be a first-rate Leporello in this same Grosses
Festspielhaus, now sings a disagreeably coarse Giovanni.

For all her art, Renee Fleming has too little steel in her voice for Donna Anna,
at least in this large house. As Don Ottavio, the equally artful Charles Workman
turns his "Dalla sua pace" into a protracted Romantic bleat. I want to hear more
of Sophie Koch's dark, lovely, ultra-sophisticated mezzo - but not as
breathlessly innocent young Zerlina. Robert Lloyd's sterling Commendatore, Rene
Pape's Leporello and Detlef Roth's Masetto are some compensation. There was some
lively debate among critics about whether this Giovanni was actually even worse
than the current Glyndebourne version, or the dire staging at the Paris
Bastille. At Salzburg, such things really shouldn't happen.

In a morning concert with the Vienna Philharmonic, Gergiev had trouble drawing
the right crispness and brightness from his players for Prokofiev's "Classical"
Symphony. It is just not their style. Nor did they do much for the uncut
Stravinsky Firebird, where the excessive brass kept swamping the strings. One
kept thinking how wise Stravinsky had been to trim the score down in later
versions. With the matchless Yuri Bashmet in Schnittke's Viola Concerto,
however, Gergiev was in his element: the music was projected with absolute
authority, grim and inconsolable.

A delightful "Mozart matinee" in the Mozarteum was a welcome reminder of what
Salzburg is supposed to be about. Frans Bruggen conducted the resident orchestra
in Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony and in the 12-year-old Mozart's astonishing
"Orphanage" Mass with a fervent quartet of soloists and the Schonberg Choir
again. It made a very good note to depart on.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 22, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

LEADER: Spy trap

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 432 words

Here's a paradox for Britain's spymasters. Three years ago, David Shayler, the
former secret agent, fled to Paris after claiming that the security service had
tried to kill President Muammar Gadaffi of Libya. Robin Cook, the foreign
secretary, said the allegation was "pure fantasy". Yesterday on his return to
Britain, Mr Shayler was arrested. But he would only be guilty in relation to the
Gadaffi affair under the Official Secrets Act if what he said about his former
employment was fact, not fiction.

The authorities seem to have avoided this difficulty by charging him with
unauthorised disclosure related to his other allegations of mess-ups and
impropriety in the service. Even so, the case shows up a huge problem for
spymasters in dealing with former agents who talk too much. In James Bond's
world, the solution was easy - perhaps something nasty with an exploding cigar,
or a shark.

Outside spy fiction, the authorities face harder options. They may dismiss
mud-slinging agents as mercenary fantasists. But then some of the mud may stick.
If the authorities prosecute the agent for a serious disclosure, they risk
giving credence to his allegations. If they bring charges for a technical
breach, they look heavy handed. If they mount a full investigation into the
agent's allegations, they risk further embarrassing revelations - even if the
allegations prove false. If true, the agent faces huge difficulties in proving
them in court.

Clearly the secret services must be allowed to keep their secrets. But such
secrecy is only tenable in peaceful democracies if the agencies are seen to act
within the law and the principles of civil liberty. This requires a good deal
more openness than they have shown in recent decades - and more vigorous
scrutiny by the parliamentary committee set up to watch over them 11 years ago.

In the present case, the authorities must show that they have not done a shabby
deal by promising to soft-pedal charges in exchange for silence. If Mr Shayler
has revealed important secrets - as the authorities appear to believe - he must
be prosecuted vigorously, however embarrassing his defence might prove.

Equally, the police, who are now investigating his charges against the service,
must find ways to demonstrate that they are doing the job properly. Mr Shayler's
accusations may be found eventually to be insubstantial or wildly exaggerated.
But if the authorities take Mr Shayler seriously enough to prosecute him, there
must be a presumption that his allegations against the service deserve, at the
least, serious investigation.

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August 21, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Philippine rebels hang on to western hostages

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 466 words

DATELINE: MANILA

Three Malaysian hostages held by Muslim rebels in the Philippines were freed
yesterday but a high-profile bid to release the nine European and South African
hostages collapsed, dashing hopes for their early freedom.

In the most severe setback for the Philippine government during the 17-week
hostage drama on Jolo island, the Abu Sayyaf rebels refused at the last minute
on Saturday to release the nine western hostages as a group, as demanded by
Joseph Estrada, the Philippine president. The rebels feared an immediate
military assault on their camp, government negotiators said.

Mr Estrada will today consult his negotiators before deciding the government's
next move. No further negotiations with the kidnappers are planned.

In a move that further worsened prospects for the hostages' early release, a
dispute blew up yesterday between the Philippine government and Libya, which had
been central to mediating the terms of Saturday's planned release.

Libyan officials blamed the Philippines for making military preparations for an
assault on the Abu Sayyaf rebels - a claim denied in Manila. As a result the
Libyan foundation that spearheaded Tripoli's mediation efforts threatened to
withdraw its help unless progress by the Philippine government was made by
today. Libya has offered development aid to the rebel-controlled region.

Robert Aventajado, the Philippine government's chief negotiator, responded by
saying that Libya was free to withdraw its help. "They came in voluntarily and
they can withdraw any time," he said.

Analysts said that while the kidnappers were unpredictable, blame for Saturday's
collapse lay largely with the Manila government. Glenda Gloria, a writer on the
Abu Sayyaf, said: "The government should have anticipated that the Abu Sayyaf
would not accept a wholesale release of the hostages, for security reasons."

Mr Estrada's eagerness to end the saga - seen by his demand for one, joint
release - probably derailed Saturday's agreement, she added.

Western diplomatic sources close to the negotiations were last night reluctant
to abandon the mediation initiatives involving Libya, as these initiatives had
produced the most concerted effort to date to secure the hostages' release.

All the Malaysian resort workers among the 21 people captured in eastern
Malaysia on April 23 have now been released.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia's deputy prime minister, thanked the Philippine
government and the negotiators for the release of all the Malaysian hostages.

At a press conference, Ken Fong a 28-year-old diving master, who was one of the
released hostages said: "We are feeling great. No words can describe how happy
we are." He said the hostages had been treated well but at times faced shortages
of food and clean drinking water.

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August 21, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Japan builds Iran links before US sanctions end

BYLINE: By BAYAN RAHMAN

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 411 words

DATELINE: TOKYO

A high-level Japanese government delegation will this week visit Iran, Japan's
third-largest source of oil, for energy talks which could lead to deeper ties
between the two before the ending of US sanctions on Iran.

Japan hopes the talks could lead to contracts for Japanese companies that are
looking forward to the expiry next year of the US's Iran-Libya Sanctions Act
that targets non-American companies that do business in Iran.

While Japan has officially toed the US line, it has done so reluctantly.
Hirobumi Kawano, head of the Natural Resources and Energy Agency, part of the
Ministry of International Trade and Industry, will meet Mehdi Hosseini, Iran's
deputy oil minister, who had visited Tokyo in May.

Miti officials said the talks would focus on broad energy issues and would not
cover financial aid or investment.

However, the talks are significant for Japan, which receives 85 per cent of its
oil imports from the Middle East and is looking to improve ties with producers
after Arabian Oil, a Japanese oil developer, lost a concession in Saudi Arabia's
Neutral Zone in February.

Some Japanese officials blame the loss of the four-decade contract on Japan's
weak bargaining position with Saudi Arabia, which is Japan's second-largest
source of oil after the United Arab Emirates. "Japan felt it didn't have a
bargaining chip in the talks with the Saudis and the feeling is (their position
would have been stronger) if only the Japanese could have argued that they would
go to Iran instead," said Kazuo Takahashi, associate professor of international
studies at Hoso university.

Japan is also eager to improve ties with Iran because of concern that China will
increasingly compete for Iran's oil and win business contracts there. In a blow
to Japanese manufacturers, China is building five 300,000-ton supertankers for
Iran after winning the Dollars 370m (Pounds 245m) contract last year, according
to China's Xinhua News Agency.

Talks this week, which could pave the way for Mohammad Khatami, Iran's
pro-reform president, to visit Japan this year, are also symbolic of Japan's
divergence with US policy towards Iran.

Last year Japan pledged a Y7.5bn (Pounds 46m) loan to Iran to complete a dam in
Khuzestan. Japan had suspended yen loans in the mid-1990s under US pressure.

Japanese companies fear they may be left behind European, Chinese and even US
companies poised to make contracts with Iran with the end of sanctions.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 18, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Gadaffi seeks a diplomatic coup in Philippines

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 494 words

Libyan Leader Muammer Gadaffi's meddling in other countries' problems has been a
constant irritant to western governments. But his past links to rebel groups
around the world is proving useful for Europe in the Philippines hostage crisis.

As a result of Libyan mediation, the release of 13 remaining hostages kidnapped
in April by the Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas from Sipadan island yesterday
appeared imminent, although bad weather forced a delay in the handover.

The hostages include German, French, Finnish and South African people. Although
the alleged payment of a ransom will be viewed with suspicion, the release of
the hostages would mark a rare diplomatic coup for Col Gadaffi.

The Libyan leader has been trying to transform his image from trouble-maker to
peaceful mediator, since United Nations sanctions on Libya were suspended last
year following the handover of two Libyan suspects accused of the 1988 Lockerbie
bombing. So far, however, his attempts at conflict resolution have focused on
Africa and proved largely unsuccessful.

That the Libyan leader should have stepped into the crisis is not as strange as
it might seem. Libya's involvement in the Philippines dates back to the 1970s,
when Col Gadaffi is believed to have backed rebel groups. Rajab Azzarouq, former
Libyan ambassador to Manila, who is one of the negotiators for the release of
the hostages, has in the past acted as a mediator between the government and the
rebels.

"Gadaffi realises he can capitalise on past links to demonstrate that Libya is a
great mediating power and to be taken seriously by the international community,
with the broader goal of trying to impress the US and get it to change its
policy," said George Joffe, a London-based Libya expert. Col Gadaffi's
rehabilitation in Europe is now well under way but the US still imposes
sanctions on Libya.

In a new twist, the Libyan leader has involved his son, Seif al-Islam, in the
Philippines crisis. Some Dollars 25m from a foundation chaired by Seif al-Islam
are believed to have changed hands. Mr Azzarouq had denied reports of a ransom
but he has acknowledged Libya would fund development in the impoverished south
of the country.

"Payments are seen to go against the international community's drive not to
negotiate with hostages, so there are good reasons to think this is not terribly
helpful," said a western diplomat. "But the French and the Germans will be
pleased to see their nationals freed and I imagine some benefit will come to
Gadaffi."

Diplomats said that if the hostages were released, the Libyan leader would press
France and Germany to lobby for a permanent lifting of the UN sanctions, which
now are only suspended to ensure full Libyan co-operation in the trial of the
Lockerbie suspects.

According to a report by France's Le Canard Enchaine, an investigative weekly,
Paris has already negotiated a reward with Libya and pledged to help it raise
its diplomatic profile.

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August 18, 2000, Friday USA Edition 2

LEADER: Paying ransom

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 427 words

The four-month hostage crisis in the Philippines seems to be on the verge of
ending, but in circumstances that may simply encourage a repetition.

A Libyan aircraft was yesterday standing by in Manila to pick up a dozen foreign
hostages who have been held captive by a Muslim guerrilla group in the southern
Philippines. If and when they are freed, the hostages and their various
governments, including France, Germany, Finland and South Africa, will have all
the more reason to be grateful to Libya: Muammer Gadaffi is paying the ransom.

The Libyan diplomat who has been the main negotiator in the crisis acknowledged
his country is offering the guerrillas a "livelihood package", said to be about
Dollars 17m-Dollars 25m. This looks very convenient for the European governments
that publicly forswore paying any ransom themselves. They may be tempted to
claim they have got their hostages back and kept their principles intact. But
that is too simple. They cannot simply thank Colonel Gadaffi for his altruism
and trust such a kidnapping never recurs. It can and it will.

There were undoubtedly several mitigating factors. For a start, there was never
a united front among those countries with hostages. Malaysia, from where the
hostages were originally seized at a holiday resort, was ready from the start to
condone ransom payments. Its policy paid off. Several Malaysian hostages were
freed early on. The Philippine government, itself a frequent ransom-payer,
warned the Europeans they would have to do the same in the end.

As for accepting Libya's "good offices", the Europeans must have known they were
not dealing with the most neutral of mediators. Back in the 1970s Libya actively
backed Muslim rebel groups in the Philippines.

It is perhaps not surprising that European governments began to buckle. First
they sent Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, to Manila, but then
sidelined him, deciding the hostage crisis was too sensitive to be left to
Brussels. German and French officials started talking privately of paying a
ransom as "development aid" to rebel-controlled southern Philippines. Then
Paris, according to French reports, had the bright idea of asking Col Gadaffi to
intervene.

These European governments should not be surprised if and when the Libyan leader
calls on them to support a definitive lifting of United Nations sanctions from
Libya and a restoration of EU links with Libya. Equally, no one should be
surprised if the Philippine rebels strike again. Their appetites will have been
whetted by the reward.

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August 17, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Hopes rise for westerners as Philippine hostage freed
NEWS DIGEST:

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 248 words

DATELINE: MANILA

Muslim rebels holding a group of international hostages in the southern
Philippines yesterday released a Filipina hostage, as negotiators said some of
the nine western hostages in the group might be set free as early as today.

Lucrecia Dablo, 35, said "this is like a dream" as she was handed over to Robert
Aventajado, Philippine government chief negotiator, on Jolo island, where the
Abu Sayyaf rebels have held their captives in jungle camps.

Ms Dablo was a cook at the Malaysian diving resort where the 21 hostages were
captured on April 23. Her release was unexpected, as attention in recent days
has focused on the fate of the western hostages from Germany, Finland, France,
Lebanon and South Africa.

Hopes for their release have been dashed on several previous occasions but a
breakthrough appears more likely this time, as Libya has stepped up its
involvement in mediation efforts to end the crisis. Libya, which has helped
negotiate several peace settlements between Muslim rebels and the Philippine
government, has promised to fund development projects in the area where the
hostages were held, one of the Philippines' poorest regions.

Libya has denied that these funds are a ransom, even though the rebels are
unlikely to release their captives without one being paid. The Libyans'
involvement is seen as part of a drive by Col Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan
leader, to rehabilitate his country's image and portray himself as a peacemaker.
Hugh Williamson, Manila

LOAD-DATE: August 16, 2000

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August 16, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Relationships between Iraq and Syria back on track

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 520 words

DATELINE: LONDON

The first passenger train from Iraq to the Syrian city of Aleppo, which arrived
last week after a break in service of nearly 20 years, carried an important
message. The resumption of rail links was a sign of the recent rapprochement
between the two historical foes and a snub at US attempts to isolate Iraq.

It was also one of a string of frustrations faced by US policy as the United
Nations' comprehensive sanctions on Iraq this month entered their 10th year.
Since 1996 Iraq has been allowed to sell oil for humanitarian aid under the
so-called oil-for-food programme.

Last week, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, on a tour of members of the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), became the first elected
head of state to visit Iraq since the 1991 Gulf war. In a stunt aimed at
discrediting US claims that Saddam Hussein is weak and isolated, the Iraqi
leader, who rarely appears in public, drove Mr Chavez around Baghdad.

Soon afterwards, President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia echoed the Venezuelan
leader's opposition to sanctions and announced that he, too, would visit Baghdad
in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the regular US and UK bombings of Iraq's northern and southern no-fly
zones - part of a forgotten small war - received rare attention in the press.
According to Baghdad, the weekend bombings, which the US said were in response
to Iraqi fire on patrol aircraft, killed two Iraqis and injured 19 others.

But although Mr Saddam seems to have the upper hand in the propaganda war, there
is no hint that the US would agree to a lifting of the embargo in the near
future. Instead, Washington has been on its own drive in recent weeks to explain
the merits of its policy.

The US state department has distributed a pamphlet of "myths and facts", about
Iraq that blames Iraq's plight - the devastation of the economy and the shortage
of food and medicines - not on sanctions but on the Iraqi regime.

"Sanctions are criticised unfairly and with insufficient information," says
Thomas Pickering, US under-secretary of state for political affairs. "Saddam
uses the misery of people to get the world to remove the sanctions."

Mr Saddam, however, knows that the process that led to last year's suspension of
UN sanctions on Libya started when African countries began to break the embargo.
His central strategy has been to show that the sanctions will gradually become
meaningless.

And as Britain was the driving force behind a softening of the US position on
Libya, Baghdad is hoping that London, Washington's strongest ally, will
eventually play a similar role with Iraq.

While the US is believed to be content with the deadlock in Iraq's relationship
with the UN, Britain is seeking ways to persuade Iraq to accept UN resolution
1284. The resolution, passed last December, includes measures to alleviate the
suffering of ordinary Iraqis and aims to return UN arms inspectors to Baghdad.

"If there's any hope that something would change after 10 years, it's in
Britain," says an Iraqi official. "The UK will not break with US policy but it
might move it forward."

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August 14, 2000, Monday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Chavez visits Libya

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 22 words

Chavez visits Libya

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez followed up a controversial trip to Iraq with a
visit to Libya yesterday.

LOAD-DATE: August 13, 2000

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August 12, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

TRAVEL: On a sinner's road to the earthly delights of Crete: WALKING: Resisting
the temptations of the Libyan sea, Amar Grover enjoyed a week's hike

SECTION: TRAVEL; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 870 words

It was, as omens go, blunt. At the edge of western Crete on the eve of a
week-long hike, I wasfound to be of impure soul, a sinner.

At the Monastery of Hrissoskalitissa - the Golden Step - on a knoll overlooking
the sea, I saw merely grey concrete steps, dazzling white walls and an eggshell
blue roof. That little band of gold, reputedly visible only to the pure, proved
elusive.

But within an hour of setting off next morning, thoughts turned from the
spiritual to the sensual. The glassy, aquamarine waters of Elafonisi beckoned; I
kicked off my boots and most of my clothes and wallowed in a lagoon ringed by
creamy sand.

This set a pattern for the rest of my week, with the Libyan Sea a kind of
soothing temptress almost every step of the way.

I had come to south-west Crete to walk part of the E4 path, one of 11 European
Long Distance Paths stretching from Ireland to Ukraine to Turkey. The E4 runs
from Gibraltar to the eastern tip of Crete, mostly on old established local
trails some of which had fallen into disuse.

The rugged south-west coast, wild and lonely in parts, is dotted with idyllic
bays and a handful of restful villages. Except for one notable stage, most of
this section is well marked and obvious.

With the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, I set off for Paleohora. The
trail arched gently around a broad bay towards Krios headland, the corner of
Crete, and a tiny chapel whose whitewashed walls gleamed like a beacon.

Below was a shingle cove of limpid water and fearless little fish, qualities
that tend to bring the boy out of the man. After a picnic lunch and an
undeserved snooze, I headed up and over the headland past wary goats and their
timid kids, the air veined with the aroma of sage, rosemary and thyme.

Paleohora straddles a peninsula protruding from scrubby hills and in ancient
times was known as "Kastel Selinou", Castle of Selinos. Faint remains of a
Venetian fort lie crumbling on the hill above the old quarter. Though hardly
brash, this is as close as south-west Crete comes to having a resort. I was
delighted with the bakery, tickled by the open-air cinema and the bars were
friendly and cheerful. But the sensible walker will leave boutiques for the end
of the road.

Next day's 17km stage to Souyia proved wilder and more remote. Anidhri Gorge,
the first of several which wind from the mountains down to the coast, funnelled
into the sea by a long shingle beach. Soon I was climbing away from the surf and
on to a plateau tinged yellow with broom and cradled by stark hills.

A sharp descent and a cluster of eerie barrel-vaulted tombs announced the site
of ancient Lisos, a city-state which lasted for two millennia until the 9th
century. Today only a healing temple and patch of mosaic floor remain.

Souyia proved another low-key mix of tavernas and bars fronting a pebbly beach.
Nudists occupy the eastern end - known locally as the Bay of Pigs - and some
gruesome sights leave clothing to be desired.

I was warned, too, of the next notorious stretch of the E4. Although not
especially difficult, it is long and isolated and, critically, one can never be
sure of finding water en route. Gaining the ridge above town alongside flocks of
sheep, I was grateful for the breeze of a cloudy morning.

It was a path as varied and satisfying as any in Crete. There were some level
contours along the hillside where I sauntered past brilliant wildflowers or
sharply aromatic herbs. The first stiff climb emerged on a saddle by a ruined
Turkish watchtower, with spectacular coastal views.

Beside a chapel at the mouth of Tripiti Gorge caves doubled as pens and the
trail snaked improbably between boulders as waves broke at my feet. Backed by a
sheer wall of pebbles and rocks, Mavri or Black Beach was enticing even in the
rain. It vanished amid late afternoon mist as I climbed toward a forest, and
only then did I yearn for a glass of wine and a cosy taverna.

It was the far side of dusk when Ayia Roumeli appeared far below, and dark by
the time I arrived. Crete's most popular gorge-walk, Samaria, ends here and only
weary legs like mine could judge the glut of restaurants, pensions and souvenir
stalls to be, well, perfect. I was scolded for being late and then locals plied
me with drink.

Continuing east the E4 resumes a gentler course, rarely straying from shore. I
paused at the 11th century chapel of Ayios Pavlos, its tiles and masonry mottled
and weathered by cent-uries of windblown salt. I bathed in a turquoise sea and
lazed on silvery sand. After lunch beneath the pines and a rest in the shade of
an old carob, I headed on to Loutro, keen to make this gem of the south coast
before sundown.

Seven years after my first visit, Loutro remains as beguiling as ever. Tucked
into a small bay and backed by steep hills, it is as tranquil as it is
picturesque; even the food seems finer and the retsina crisper. For a few
slothful days, it felt as if the Golden Step's augury wasn't far off the mark.

Hikers as well as idlers are particularly blessed, with sublime day-walks and
longer trails soaring into the White Mountains. Utterly content, I strode off
along the narrow path for the final short leg to Hora Sfakion.

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August 10, 2000, Thursday USA Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: An embargo on commonsense: Ali Abunimah and Anthony Arnove
say sanctions on Iraq hurt ordinary people and help Saddam Hussein to stay in p:

BYLINE: By ALI ABUNIMAH and ANTHONY ARNOVE

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 818 words

Ten years ago the United Nations imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iraq in
response to its invasion of Kuwait. Iraq was driven out of the country the
following year during the Gulf war. But the sanctions remain in place today in
spite of growing evidence that they have only hurt ordinary Iraqis. The ruling
elite is insulated from their impact and Saddam Hussein continues in power.

While a handful have grown rich off the black market, hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis, particularly children under five, have died from dehydration,
malnutrition, cholera, tuberculosis and other easily preventable diseases,
according to UN studies.

The bombing of Iraq since early 1999 has received scant attention but it, too,
is inflicting casualties on the civilian population.

Unemployment has rocketed and hyperinflation has destroyed the value of the
Iraqi dinar. Once well-to-do families now sell their furniture and books to buy
food.

US and British officials argue that the UN's "oil-for-food" programme would
provide sufficient sustenance for Iraqis if it were not for the deliberate
obstruction of Iraq's government. But this is doubtful. Under the programme, a
UN committee must approve the majority of contracts for imports to Iraq. US and
British representatives have been repeatedly criticised for holding up vitally
needed supplies for hospitals, water-treatment facilities, power plants, the oil
industry and other basic infrastructure. At present, about Dollars 1.6bn in
contracts is being held up by the committee.

These kinds of measures cannot be justified, even if the ultimate goal is to
disarm Iraq. Indeed, there is growing consensus that Iraq is already militarily
crippled. Rolf Ekeus, the UN weapons inspector from 1991 to 1997, said in May
that Iraq's military capabilities had been fundamentally eliminated. Even Martin
Indyk, former US assistant secretary of state, admitted last autumn that there
was no evidence to suggest that Iraq was trying to reconstitute its weapons of
mass destruction.

To make matters worse, Bill Clinton's government continues to shift the
goalposts on the conditions needed to lift the embargo. The sanctions will stay
in place "until the end of time, or as long as he (Saddam Hussein) is in power",
the president has said. Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state, has also tied
the sanctions to "regime change" in Iraq, an interpretation fundamentally at
odds with UN resolutions.

Fortunately, the accumulating evidence of the bankruptcy of the embargo and the
futility of continued military attacks on Iraq is leading to a new willingness
to question the policy.

In March, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, was forced to admit: "We are in
danger of losing the argument or propaganda war - if we haven't lost it already
- about who is responsible for this situation, President Saddam Hussein or the
UN," adding, "we are accused of causing suffering to an entire population".

Last February, more than 70 members of the US House of Representatives wrote to
Mr Clinton calling for an end to the economic sanctions. David Bonior, a House
representative and one of the leaders of Mr Clinton's own Democratic party in
Congress, called the sanctions "infanticide masquerading as policy".

The international community has become increasingly uncomfortable with US
unilateralism. Russia's unease over the Iraqi stalemate has led to hints that
Vladimir Putin, the president, might abandon the sanctions. Iraq owes Russia
billions of dollars from the Gulf war, and both France and Russia have oil
interests in Iraq that could prove profitable if the embargo were ended.

More generally, there is growing recognition that sanctions do not meet their
objectives. In recent years, European countries have quietly developed relations
with Iran - an approach that the US has lately felt compelled to follow - after
the failure of two decades of boycotts and confrontation. Britain has slowly
restored relations with Libya, a country with which it has had no shortage of
differences. Could Europe now take the lead in a new approach to Iraq?

Even if the embargo were lifted today, it might take years to rebuild Iraq's
infrastructure and economy. It will take much longer to repair the damage to a
whole generation of Iraqi children.

The Iraqi people should no longer be held hostage to the actions of a government
over which they have no control, and the world should not sit on the sidelines
as Washington dictates - or blocks - the way forward.

Lifting the embargo will take away whatever legitimacy Saddam Hussein gains by
standing up to the west, and will allow the Iraqi people to extend their gaze
beyond mere survival. Perhaps then they will have the chance to determine their
own future.

Ali Abunimah is vice-president of the Arab-American Action Network. Anthony
Arnove is an editor at South End Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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August 7, 2000, Monday London Edition 2

FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK: Questions for Wahid

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK; Pg. 38

LENGTH: 1117 words

Abdurrahman Wahid, the Indonesian president, faces tough questioning in the
upper house of parliament on his first 10 months in power. The armed forces'
failure to subdue renewed violence between Muslims and Christians on the
Moluccas islands, causing thousands of deaths, and the slow pace of economic
reform will provide his critics with plenty of ammunition. Nevertheless Mr
Wahid's presidency is likely to be endorsed in the absence of a serious
alternative contender for the fragmented country's leadership.

Oilfield tour

Abdulla, Saudi Arabian crown prince, receives Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan
president, and Ali Rodriguez, president of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, on the second day of their tour of oil producers. Later in
the week they visit Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq,
Indonesia and Libya.

Terror warning

The US government has warned American citizens abroad to be extra vigilant on
the second anniversary of the bombing of two US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam. More than 200 people died in the bomb blasts, which led to reprisal US
cruise missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan.

ANC landmark

South Africans mark the 10th anniversary of the suspension of hostilities by the
African National Congress, ending a 29-year guerrilla campaign against white
rule. This cleared the way to formal talks on ending South Africa's apartheid
system and the appointment of Nelson Mandela as the country's first black
leader.

Country music

The annual Old Fiddlers Convention, the largest event in the world for country
and mountain music, opens in Galax, Virginia. Hundreds of contestants from
around the world compete for money and prizes in categories including bluegrass
banjo, guitar, old-time fiddle, and mandolin. The rules of the competition are
strict with only acoustic instruments and authentic folk songs allowed (to
August 12).

Murder trial resumes

The trial resumes in Sohag, Egypt, of 98 people accused of murder, arising from
Christian-Muslim riots that left 12 dead in the town of al-Kosheh.

Competition ruling

A European Commission competition regulator is scheduled to rule on a proposed
joint venture between Honeywell, UTC and i2 Technologies to create
myaircraft.com, for the sale of aerospace equipment.

Sierra Leone mandate

The mandate of the United Nations' peace-keeping operation in Sierra Leone is
scheduled to run out. There are 11,100 personnel on the ground in the civil
war-torn West African country, making it the largest UN force under active
deployment.

Nordic meeting

David Oddson, prime minister of Iceland, arrives in Oslo for talks with Jens
Stoltenberg, his Norwegian counterpart.

Holidays

Canada, Ireland.

TUESDAY 8

Chance for peace

The Sri Lankan parliament begins debating a package of constitutional reforms
aimed at ending the country's 17-year-old ethnic civil war with the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The package devolves powers to the regions, including one
administered by the Tamils. President Chandrika Kumaratunga hopes to get a
two-thirds majority in the parliament before putting the bill to a referendum.
More than 60,000 people are thought to have died in the secessionist war that
neither side is now thought capable of winning.

WEDNESDAY 9

Corruption case

The corruption trial opens in Cairo of Mohamed Fouda, a former official in the
Egyptian culture ministry, who is accused of amassing a fortune in kick-backs.

Balkan visitors

President Clinton is due to meet Stipe Mesic, Croatia's new president, and Ivica
Racan, prime minister, in Washington for talks on enhancing bilateral ties. The
death of President Franjo Tudjman in December and the subsequent election of a
reformist Croatian government prepared to do business with the west - including
the International War Crimes Tribunal - has increased the prospect of stability
in the northern Balkans.

Economic outlook

The US Federal Reserve releases its Beige Book, published eight times a year.
Each Federal Reserve bank gathers anecdotal information from bank reports,
interviews with key business leaders, economists, market exports and other
resources to provide a summary of economic conditions.

THURSDAY 10

Arafat in Moscow

Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, is expected to visit Moscow as part of a
diplomatic offensive in the wake of the failed Camp David summit. With the US,
Russia is an official co-sponsor of the Middle East peace talks, and there is
speculation that it might offer to play a more interventionist role, in line
with President Vladimir Putin's ambition to raise the country's international
profile.

Suharto case to open

The corruption case against Indonesia's former President Suharto is scheduled to
begin by today, according to an official statement. Suharto, 78, has been
effectively under house arrest since late May.

Perot's party

The US Reform party, set up by Ross Perot, the former presidential candidate,
holds its national convention in Long Beach, California. Perot became the most
successful third party candidate in the 1992 elections, winning 19 per cent of
the vote, but is not expected to stand in this year's nomination contest, for
which the favourite is former staunch Republican Patrick Buchanan.

Military manoeuvres

The Russian security council is expected to meet to consider military reforms,
following President Vladimir Putin's sacking of six generals allied to Igor
Sergeyev, the defence minister.

Holiday

Ecuador.

FRIDAY 11

Web access ruling

A Paris court is due to rule on the assertion by Yahoo!, the internet portal,
that it is technically impossible to prevent access by French citizens to
foreign websites selling Nazi memorabilia. A judge ordered Yahoo! in May to
block French access to any parts of its US website on which third parties
auction Nazi memorabilia.

Holidays

Zimbabwe.

SATURDAY 12

Speed freaks

Motorcyclists and racing drivers will be competing to set record speeds at the
52nd annual Bonneville Speedweek on the Utah salt flats.

Holidays

Thailand, Zimbabwe.

SUNDAY 13

Tanzanian poll date

Political parties in Tanzania have until today to nominate candidates for
general elections on October 29.

Pork bellows

The annual pig imitation festival gets under way in the mid-Pyrenees town of
Trie-sur-Baise. Contestants are required to produce a squeal or oink that
corresponds to an important moment in a pig's life. Other contests include
piglet racing, best pig outfit and sausage eating.

Replacement

Paraguay holds an election to choose a vice-president to replace the murdered
Felix Argana. Compiled by Roger Beale Fax 44 171 873 3196

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 4, 2000, Friday London Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK: Lasmo may step up share buy-back programme

BYLINE: By MATTHEW JONES

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 434 words

Lasmo, the oil exploration and production group, may step up its share buy-back
programme, planned for the second half of this year.

The company announced in March that it would buy back about Pounds 40m of its
shares using cash generated from asset sales. Paul Murray, finance director,
said this figure would be augmented as the group expected to generate continuing
strong cash flows and hoped to make further asset disposals.

"You can expect to see further stock repurchases in addition to what we have
already announced. I can't say when this will be or how much at the moment -
that depends on how successful we are," he said.

Mr Murray said the group was planning "material and sizeable" asset deals. It
hoped to dispose of some of its acreage in north Africa and in the medium term
proposed to reduce exposure in Venezuela, where it owns the Dacion field.

"We don't want to rush into anything, we are waiting for the right deal," he
said.

The group was reporting a sharp rise in net profit for the six months to June
30, from Pounds 28m in 1999 to Pounds 124m, lifting earnings per share from 2p
to 9p. Turnover more than doubled from Pounds 239m to Pounds 500m on the back of
improved world oil prices and increased production.

The group said it had won approval for a number of key development projects in
north Africa, including the Ourhoud field in Algeria and the Elephant field in
Libya. It was also making progress in Pakistan, where it signed heads of terms
last month to supply 1,000m cu ft of natural gas.

In the UK it increased production at Liverpool Bay by 40 per cent to 92m barrels
of oil equivalent a day, while production in Venezuela jumped 60 per cent as new
facilities came onstream.

Return on average capital employed, a key measure of industry efficiency, rose
from 9.7 to 15.1 per cent. Cash flow from normal operations increased from
Pounds 37m in the first half of 1999 to Pounds 215m.

The board is not proposing to pay an interim dividend, in line with the first
half of last year.

The shares rose 4 1/2p to 130 1/2p.

Comment

* Joe Darby, chief executive, must still feel under pressure. The group's
figures are good, but given the strength of world oil prices they are not out of
the ordinary, and hardly dynamic. On a debt-adjusted cash flow multiple of about
5 for 2001, the shares look relatively cheap. But Lasmo still needs to increase
its focus and reduce risk to individual projects. Any increase in share
buy-backs would have to substantially improve on the Pounds 40m already
earmarked for this year to make investors take notice.

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August 1, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS - EUROPE: Putin accepts invitation to visit Libya

BYLINE: By CHARLES CLOVER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 342 words

DATELINE: MOSCOW

Vladimir Putin, Russian president, yesterday accepted an invitation to visit
Libya, the north African state which the US still accuses of supporting
international terrorism.

Mr Putin's planned visit is the latest in a number of recent Russian overtures
to countries spurned by Washington as "rogue states".

Last week, Mr Putin met Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, and early last
month made the first visit of any Russian or Soviet leader to North Korea.

The invitation for Mr Putin to visit Tripoli was extended by Abdul Rahman
Shalgam, Libya's foreign minister, who arrived in Moscow on Sunday for a
three-day official visit.

During his stay, Mr Shalgam will meet Ilya Klebanov, Russia's deputy prime
minister who oversees the arms industry. Russia has already agreed to export
Dollars 100m of arms and military technology to Libya, according to Sergei
Chemezov, director of Promexport, Russia's state arms exporter.

Last year the United Nations suspended its sanctions imposed against Libya for
supporting terrorism after it handed over two men indicted in the 1988 bombing
of a Pan Am airliner over Scotland.

But the US has yet to thaw its frozen relations with Tripoli.

Moscow's overtures to old allies such as Iraq, North Korea and Libya remind many
experts of the regional balance of power games played by the US and the USSR
during the cold war.

This old balance of power strategy was echoed in Russia's recently published
foreign policy doctrine which criticised the "strengthening tendency towards the
formation of a unipolar world under financial and military domination by the
United States", and prescribed a "multipolar system of international relations"
as the antidote.

Yesterday Mr Putin also sacked six senior generals in what may turn out to be a
significant reshuffle in the military. The six were described as allies of Igor
Sergeyev, the defence minister, who has been locked in a feud with Anatoly
Kvashnin, chief of the general staff, over a plan to reorganise Russia's
strategic rocket forces.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 1, 2000, Tuesday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Putin to visit Libya

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 33 words

Putin to visit Libya

Russian president Vladimir Putin accepted an invitation to visit Libya, the
north African state which the US accuses of supporting international terrorism.
Europe, Page 2

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July 31, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

OBSERVER: Prescott v Pentagon OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 342 words

The world's only superpower may finally have met its match. Washington could be
squaring up for a ding-dong battle with John Prescott.

It's all to do with US plans to build a National Missile Defence system, an idea
that's been creating all sorts of tangles in Whitehall.

But just as Bill Clinton ponders whether to give the multi-billion dollar plan
the final go-ahead, the deputy prime minister has stepped forward, wielding what
western diplomats say looks horribly like a rather large spanner.

Few in London are totally cool with the US idea of a American missile shield -
not least because it's seen as cutting the European allies adrift within the
Nato alliance.

If the US makes itself invulnerable to missiles fired by so-called rogue states
like North Korea, Libya and Iraq, Europe becomes the obvious target.

And since the new US system would depend on a new early warning radar system
based in Fylingdales, Yorkshire, Britain could be first in the firing line.

Even so, Tony Blair has given Clinton a discreet nod. If Washington politics
dictate that the system must be given the green light before November's
presidential election, then its faithful ally won't stand in the way.

Blair is backed by the Ministry of Defence whose reliance on US technology for
its own defence systems means it will do nothing to offend the Pentagon.

That leaves the Foreign Office, deeply worried about the effect of the US plan
on Europe's own defence efforts, out on a limb.

Until now. Word has it that Prescott has told the Americans that if they want to
upgrade their facilities at Fylingdales they must get planning permission for a
scheme that involves building a concrete block up to 14 storeys high in part of
a national park.

So if Washington wants its new radar, it will have to file an application and be
ready to defend it at a public inquiry.

That just could take five years or more - and there are no exceptions in the
planning process for allies. Maybe Prescott should expect an invitation any day
now to Camp David.

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July 22, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: US takes step towards easing Cuba sanctions EMBARGO ON COMMUNIST
NEIGHBOUR:

BYLINE: By EDWARD ALDEN

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 471 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The US is moving towards the first significant breach in its 40-year economic
embargo of Cuba following two strong votes in the House of Representatives that
could end restrictions on travel, food and medicine sales to the island nation.

In an unexpected move late on Thursday night, the House voted to deny the
administration funds for imposing either restrictions on travel to Cuba or
unilateral sanctions on food and medicine.

Senate aides said yesterday that supporters of lifting the embargo on Cuba are
likely to introduce a similar measure next week.

House lawmakers defeated a broader amendment, however, that would have blocked
all funding for enforcement of the economic embargo.

Despite strong resistance from Florida legislators with close ties to the Cuban
exile community, a consensus appears to be building in Congress that the
broad-ranging economic embargo is a relic of the cold war that should gradually
be lifted.

That view was boosted by the recent debate over granting normal trading
relations with China, in which the administration argued that closer trading
ties would help prospects for democratic reform in China. The US has also
recently announced a comprehensive trade agreement with Vietnam and an easing of
sanctions on North Korea.

"It would seem to me that, if we really want to be consistent with our foreign
policy, what is good in terms of trying to turn around these other Communist
countries should be good for a Communist country that is only 90 miles from us,"
said Charles Rangel, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Ways & Means
committee.

Lawmakers are also under pressure from US farmers, who want an end to the use of
food as a unilateral trade weapon, a position the administration has supported
for every other country except Cuba. Since US food sanctions were largely lifted
last year by President Clinton, agricultural sales have increased substantially
to Sudan, Libya and Iran, and are expected to be boosted overall by about
Dollars 500m annually.

Agricultural interests are eager for a decision this year, because front-running
Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has spoken out against easing
sanctions on Cuba.

Congress is expected to come to a final vote on the issue in September, likely
in the context of an agriculture spending bill. An amendment currently supported
by the House leadership would open food and medicine sales to Cuba, but would
maintain current travel restrictions and would deny the use of public or private
US finance to support US agricultural sales.

The Administration favours easing restrictions on Cuba, but is opposed to the
export credit restrictions, and to measures in the House bill that would
interfere with the president's powers to pursue foreign policy without
congressional interference.

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 18, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS: Old laws hamper new acquisitions US MERGERS FOREIGN
BUYERS ENCOUNTER RESISTANCE AFTER UNPRECEDENTED SURGE IN TAKEOVERS:

BYLINE: By PETER SPIEGAL

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 860 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The last two years have seen an unprecedented number of American companies
snapped up by foreign buyers. In 1999 alone, almost Dollars 292bn (Pounds 193bn)
was spent on US acquisitions, up 350 per cent on 1997, according to Thomson
Financial Securities Data. And the pace has continued this year, with Dollars
154bn in deals already announced.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of those takeovers, however, is that despite
the household names being acquired - Chrysler, Amoco, PaineWebber - there has
been relatively little opposition from the American public or politicians. Until
now.

Reports last month that Deutsche Telekom was on the prowl for Sprint, the
long-distance operator, sparked unexpected opposition on Capitol Hill, with a
surprisingly bipartisan group of senators declaring that they would oppose any
sale of spectrum licences to a (partly) government-owned foreign telecoms
company. That would not only rule out Deutsche Telekom, but also France Telecom
and Japanese incumbent NTT.

The US has gone through fits of protectionism in the past. But with its economy
humming in recent years, such sentiments appeared to be a thing of the past.
"Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler with nary a peep," notes one observer.

However, as the size and number grow, the mergers are beginning to butt up
against old regulatory rules, which could stir dormant protectionist sentiment.

After all, Deutsche Telekom's experience is not the only one of that kind
recently. The UK government has repeatedly tried to get US negotiators to agree
to lift foreign ownership restrictions on airlines, currently at 25 per cent of
voting stock. US obstinacy has been such that the UK set aside its objections in
order to move negotiations on aviation liberalisation forward.

To many, this seems an odd stance, particularly as congressional leaders are
wringing their hands over concerns that the recent United-US Airways merger
announcement may lead to a wave of consolidation that would leave the US with
just three major airlines.

"In a market that is more and more dominated by big carriers, there is a
desperate need for new competition," argues David Tait, executive vice-president
of Virgin Atlantic, whose boss Sir Richard Branson has expressed interest in
starting a US-based carrier. "We'd probably buy planes built in Seattle, we'd be
hiring Americans, we'd be creating fare and service competition. What's wrong
with that picture?"

Similar restrictions - including ownership limits on everything from television
broadcasters to fishing vessels - are littered throughout US law. And many stem
from decades-old legislation passed for seemingly outdated national security
reasons.

For telecoms, it is a 1934 law preventing foreign government ownership of radio
licences passed when radio signals were the only way for the US government to
communicate nationwide.

In the case of airlines, restrictions stem from the 1950s-era Civil Reserve Air
Fleet (CRAF) programme, which allows domestic US airlines to serve as emergency
transportation for the American military in return for shares of the Defence
Department's peacetime business. Although CRAF was used in the Gulf war, it
would be difficult to argue that it should preclude US-based airlines owned by
nationals from allied countries from participating.

"It's always thrown out there that this is a matter of national security," says
Mr Tait of Virgin. "That's a crock. If Iraq or Libya were talking about starting
an airline with planes that could be converted into bombers, it may be a
different case."

However, more modern national security issues, including protection of
telecommunications networks, have been used to complicate purchases of US
companies.

Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation asked a little-known
Treasury Department group called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US
(CFIUS) to investigate NTT's planned purchase of the Colorado-based internet
service provider Verio. The FBI is concerned that foreign ownership of Verio's
internet backbone may preclude it from performing surveillance over the network.

The move into telecoms by CFIUS, which hitherto has had a limited effect on
foreign dealmaking, may be a harbinger of things to come. A report released last
month by the US General Accounting Office argued that CFIUS is not being
aggressive enough in its patrolling of cross-border mergers.

All of this comes at a time when the increasingly international nature of
mergers and ownership have begun to complicate the definition of a company's
place of origin, a trend that may eventually trump statutes that try to restrict
ownership by foreign entities, both in the US and elsewhere.

Companies that are nominally foreign may in fact be owned by domestic
shareholders. Todd Malan, executive director of the Washington-based
Organisation for International Investment, which lobbies on behalf of US
subsidiaries of foreign companies, notes that Nokia, although based in Finland,
has about 65 per cent of its outstanding shares owned by US investors. "How does
the US government or anybody else put a flag on that company?"

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 10, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

SPECIAL REPORT: The deadly scramble for diamonds in Africa: In the first of a
three-part series, the Financial Times uncovers the global network of arms
traffickers and corrupt governments behind the 'conflict diamond' trade

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN, THOMAS CATAN, FRANCESCO GUERRERA, MICHAEL HOLMAN,
CAROLA HOYOS, MARK HUBAND, KHOZEM MERCHANT, ANDREW PARKER, SATHNAM SANGHERA and
MARK TURNER

SECTION: SPECIAL REPORT; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 2334 words

Deep in the rain forest of eastern Sierra Leone, thousands of men and boys
scrape through the pale brown earth with shovels or their bare hands in search
of diamonds.

These bent figures are today's slaves. Their masters are the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF), the rebel movement which has used diamonds to wage a war
without mercy in the west African country for the past nine years.

Until his arrest two months ago, the RUF leader was Foday Sankoh, a warlord who
combined random brutality - his fighters specialised in chopping off the limbs
of men, women and children - with a meticulous approach to the business of
diamond dealing.

Two school exercise books emblazoned with the slogan "Peace. God bless the
teacher" were recovered from Mr Sankoh's villa in Freetown, the Sierra Leone
capital, and obtained by the Financial Times. They record the scale of the RUF
operation in the diamond pits at Kono, one of many controlled by the rebels.

The book entry shows that 220 diamonds worth about Dollars 2.5m locally were
mined in a single day on 9 January 1999 at Kono. Between October 30 1998 and
January 1 2000, the RUF sold 10,137 Kono diamonds through the murky channels of
the world's illicit diamond market.

Government officials in Freetown think the documents prove a long-held suspicion
that Sankoh's rebels sold illicit gems to buy guns - and that they were helped
by neighbouring Liberia whose ruler, Charles Taylor, is a longstanding supporter
of the RUF.

The link between diamond dealing and arms trafficking in Sierra Leone fits the
pattern of two other violent conflicts in Angola and the Democratic Republic of
Congo. In these three former European colonies, the scramble for control of the
diamond fields has helped to fuel a cycle of violence, mass homelessness and
economic collapse.

Trade in "conflict diamonds" has flourished because the tiny gems are portable,
easily concealed and a guaranteed source of cash. But it is also a post-cold war
phenomenon in which arms traffickers, corrupt governments and local warlords
thrive in the vacuum left by the absence of superpower rivalry.

They are part of a global network extending from the desert air strips of the
United Arab Emirates to the armaments factories of Bulgaria and Ukraine; from
the presidential palaces of Liberia, Burkina Faso and Togo to the offices of
diamond dealers in Antwerp, Bombay, Monrovia, Johannesburg and Tel Aviv.

Estimates vary as to the size of the "conflict diamonds" market. De Beers, the
South African mining giant, thinks that it amounts to four per cent of world
diamond production.

The US and UK governments think the figure could be significantly higher.

Whatever the real figure, international concern is growing. Last week, the
United Nations security council agreed an embargo on diamonds exported from
areas in Sierra Leone under the control of the RUF. The ban matches a diamond
embargo imposed on the Unita rebel movement in Angola in 1998 which has had a
modest effect on curbing smuggling.

Britain, which pushed for the Sierra Leone embargo, is concerned about the close
relationship between Sankoh and Taylor, the former rebel turned Liberian
president. Both were trained in Libya; both launched rebellions between 1989 and
1991; both their armies have co-operated extensively.

A cache of documents discovered in Sankoh's villa in early May points to links
between the two men and their two armies.

The documents suggest that the RUF continued trading in illicit diamonds even
after a controversial peace deal was signed last July. This deal gave Sankoh a
role in the government as head of a proposed commission responsible for
marketing the country's diamonds.

According to a confidential RUF report dated 27 September 1999, one of the
movement's commanders describes how he was instructed to take diamonds to a
"business associate" of Sankoh for the "procurement of military equipment".

A second memorandum written by Sam Bokarie, a RUF general whose nom de guerre is
General Mosquito, on September 26 1999 states: "With the diamond-rich ground of
Kono under our control, a mining unit was set up headed by Lt Col Kennedy who is
in place to give account of all proceeds from mining operations."

In June 1998 the UN security council banned the provision of "arms and related
material" to non-governmental forces in Sierra Leone, including the RUF.

Monie Captan, Liberian foreign minister, denies the government has provided
weapons to the RUF in exchange for diamonds. "No one in (the) Liberian
government or Charles Taylor benefits from trade in Sierra Leone diamonds.
Absolutely not."

But western intelligence officials are convinced that Liberia is the RUF's
principal weapons supplier as well as a sanctuary for the movement, and that
Bokarie is Taylor's favourite to replace Sankoh as RUF leader.

"Taylor is an integral part of the RUF," said a western intelligence official.
"There is no interest in stability in Sierra Leone."

One explanation for Taylor's determination to control Sierra Leone's diamond
trade could be his need to pay for arms bought from Libya. In 1989, with the
support of Muammar Gadaffi, Libyan leader, Taylor unleashed a civil war in
Liberia that culminated in his election as president in 1997.

A western intelligence official said Liberian bank accounts under observation
showed payments from Liberia to Libya.

The British government is so convinced about Taylor's role in Sierra Leone that
last month it persuaded fellow EU governments to withhold Dollars 47m of aid to
Liberia. At the time the EU "expressed deep concern that President Taylor has
failed to act to prevent arms and other supplies from reaching the rebels in
Sierra Leone from the territory of Liberia, that close links remain between
those rebels and supporters in Liberia and that the illicit diamond trade
continues through Liberia".

Diamonds have played an equally influential role in perpetuating the civil war
in Angola, which boasts 10 per cent of the world's diamond reserves, including
some of the best quality gem stones.

Between 1975 and 1991, Angola was a case study in superpower rivalry. The Soviet
Union and Cuba supported the Marxist MPLA government in Luanda. The US and South
Africa backed the Unita rebels led by Jonas Savimbi, a charismatic guerrilla
fighter.

But with the end of the cold war and of apartheid, Unita lost its patrons.

Its isolation deepened when Savimbi refused to accept the results of an election
in 1992 which international observers judged to be free and fair. The civil war
escalated, fuelled by the proceeds from diamond sales.

Despite the UN security council imposing a ban on arms and fuel sales to Unita
in 1993, Mobutu Sese Seko, then president of Zaire, funnelled weapons to Unita
between 1994 and 1997. He was paid in diamonds and cash.

After Mobutu was overthrown in 1997, the UN security council tried to contain
the war by imposing a ban on Unita diamonds in June 1998.

But a UN report on "conflict diamonds" presented by Canadian ambassador Robert
Fowler alleged that Gnassingbe Eyadema, president of Togo, became Unita's
primary weapons channel.

The report also said that it was highly likely the Burkina Faso authorities had
diverted weapons to Unita, and that Blaise Compaore, the country's president,
had helped Unita obtain fuel.

A confidential US government report shares the conclusions about Burkina Faso
and Togo. It says Unita "pays for goods with smuggled diamonds and keeps large
amounts of cash stored in the residences of trusted allies".

The ramifications of conflict diamonds extend well beyond Africa. An
intelligence document by an African country says Israeli, Chinese, Russian,
Bulgarian and Ukrainian arms manufacturers have provided weapons to Unita. The
weapons are flown to Angola by air freight companies predominantly run by
Russian and South African nationals.

"International and regional smuggling networks have constructed elaborate covert
operations to escape scrutiny," says the document.

"These networks are well connected to corrupt government officials worldwide.
Companies and individuals are paid for their services either with raw diamonds
or earnings from diamond sales."

Diamonds are the single most important reason for Savimbi's survival as a
guerrilla fighter. Today, a similar mineral war is engulfing Congo, a country
the size of western Europe which has eight per cent of the world's diamond
reserves.

The Congo war has sucked in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi on the side of the rebel
forces; the Angolan, Zimbabwean and Namibian armies have backed Laurent Kabila,
president of Congo.

The new development in the Congo conflict is that, for the first time, a diamond
mining company has entered into commercial agreements with countries
participating in the conflict.

In May it emerged that Oryx, a Cayman Islands registered mining company, had
concluded a profit-sharing agreement with the Congolese and Zimbabwean
governments for a Dollars 1bn diamond concession. The company, which sought a
listing on the London stock market, insisted there was nothing unusual about the
arrangement.

But the deal aroused controversy because the Zimbabwean army is providing
security around the concession in the Kasai region, Congo's main source of
industrial quality diamonds. Senior Zimbabwean army officers are on the board of
a company that formed a joint venture with Oryx to exploit the concession.

Last month, the London stock exchange expressed concerns at Oryx's plans. The
British government also criticised Oryx, and claimed the concession was in a
conflict zone - a claim denied by the company. Oryx's financial advisers
subsequently withdrew, forcing the company to abandon its flotation.

Other countries have tended to turn a blind eye to conflict diamonds, and some
dealers in the main trading centres have been willing to buy the stones for
years.

The diamond industry prides itself on self regulation where a gentleman's word
is his bond; but diamonds are a smuggler's best friend and the operations from
Africa's conflict zones are elaborate and extremely effective.

Everyone gets a cut but some more than others. The RUF in Sierra Leone sells its
diamonds to dealers, predominantly Lebanese, for 90 to 95 per cent of their
rough value. The dealers smuggle them across Sierra Leone's porous borders into
Liberia, and to a lesser extent, Guinea.

The dealers then arrange for the stones to be despatched mainly by air to the
main trading centres for rough diamonds such as Antwerp and Tel Aviv.

Couriers typically receive a commission worth one per cent of the value of the
stones. Some buyers use secret Swiss bank accounts - called "mountain dollars"
in the trade - to cover up their transactions.

An Antwerp diamond dealer said on occasions the dealers smuggling the stones
into Liberia could sell them for up to 120 per cent of their value because drug
runners in Monrovia were keen to launder money.

The dealer also recounted how, en route from Sierra Leone to Belgium, he stopped
off in Conakry in Guinea. Customs and police officers whisked him through
passport control in the hope of persuading him to pay a bribe in return for
allowing him to smuggle out diamonds. "They rolled out the red carpet," he said.

Antwerp, the ancient Flemish town in Belgium, is the biggest trading centre for
rough diamonds with a turnover of around Dollars 23bn a year. It is a natural
destination for the smuggled stones. The city's diamond district is concentrated
in three dingy streets near the railway station. It is a small, tightly-knit
world dominated by Indians, Belgian and Israeli Jews and the Lebanese.

The industry is still run on the old-fashioned rule that business relationships
can be based on trust rather than formal contracts. But this climate of secrecy
lends itself to abuse.

An Antwerp dealer estimated that rough diamonds worth Dollars 3bn are smuggled
into Belgium every year. Other dealers said the figure would be much lower, but
many admitted there was "trading in black" - slang for black market trading.

A British government official said one of the authors of the Fowler report had
privately disclosed that "99 per cent of Unita rough diamonds were being traded
in Antwerp. Nobody declaring them to Customs, these were smuggled in".

Another Antwerp dealer blamed indifference in the trade to conflict diamonds. He
said: "If you go to the diamond dealer's office and say 'I want to buy these',
you do not ask where they come from. If the price is right and you think you can
make money on the parcel, you buy it."

Peter Meeus, general director of Antwerp's diamond high council, which
co-regulates the industry with the Belgian government, said the black market in
diamonds had been "marginalised".

He insisted Unita diamonds were no longer available in Antwerp. "We would hear.
It's a small world, it's only three streets. It's 5,000 people, and let's say
500 important people who all know each other. It would be known."

Meanwhile non-governmental organisations such as Global Witness are determined
to raise public awareness about conflict diamonds. The main battle will be
fought in the US, where annual sales of diamond jewellery represent almost half
of the Dollars 55bn sold worldwide.

The plush showroom of Tiffany & Co, on New York's 5th Avenue, is a world away
from the the diamond pits of Kono. And yet, some of the diamonds glittering in
the store's windows could have been discovered by the mud-caked hands of the
Sierra Leonean diggers.

Asked by a would-be groom about the origin of the diamonds, the Tiffany's
salesman could not guarantee they did not come from conflict zones in Africa.

"Tell the bride not to concern herself too much or she won't wear a diamond
ring," said the salesman. Additional reporting by David Buchan, Neil Buckley,
Thomas Catan, Michael Holman, Carola Hoyos, Khozem Merchant, Sathnam Sanghera
and Mark Turner

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Financial Times (London,England)

July 10, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK: Aids conference in Durban

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK; Pg. 52

LENGTH: 1249 words

Some 12,000 people are expected to attend the 13th international Aids
conference, which begins today in Durban, South Africa, as governments and
international agencies struggle to tackle what has become a global emergency of
huge proportions. This year the UN security council and the US government have
recognised Aids as a security threat - since it promotes social destabilisation
- as well as a health and development disaster. Some 34.3m people are estimated
to be infected with the Aids virus, 24.5m of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and
18.8m have already died.

EU foreign ministers meet

European Union foreign ministers meet in Brussels to discuss whether to restore
economic assistance to Russia following this year's change of leadership in
Moscow as well as the Commission's proposals for resolving the transatlantic
banana dispute. Their meeting, the first under France's EU presidency, will
begin with a televised discussion of policy in the western Balkans.

Human rights scrutinised

The UN human rights committee meets in Geneva to July 28 to examine how well
Kyrgyzstan, Ireland, Kuwait and Australia are living up to their obligations as
signatories of the international convention on civil and political rights. The
four countries are among the 145 states party to the convention, each of which
is subject to periodic examination by the 18-member expert committee. The
wide-ranging convention recognises the right to life, liberty and personal
security, prohibits torture and the arbitrary deprivation of life, and upholds
freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Japan and US talk telecoms

Japan and the US resume bilateral talks to find ways to resolve the
long-disputed issue of reducing interconnection charges by NTT, Japan's dominant
telecoms carrier.

The US is pressing Japan to cut fees dramatically, complaining that NTT's rates
are the world's highest. The two countries are hoping to narrow the gap ahead of
next week's Group of Eight summit of world leaders (July 21-23).

Australian PM visits India

The Australian prime minister John Howard is to visit New Delhi in India, the
first visit by an Australian premier since 1989. He will hold talks with Atal
Vajpayee, the Indian prime minister, president Narayanan, vice-president Kant
and senior Indian ministers. The intention is to develop Australia's economic
and political links with India, particularly in the telecommunications and IT
sectors. Trade between the two countries has increased as a result of India's
economic liberalisation. Last year Australia's trade with India amounted to more
than Dollars 2bn (to July 11).

African unity summit

The Organisation for African Unity holds its 36th annual summit in Lome, Togo.
The heads of state conference aims to adopt a "treaty of the African union" to
monitor implementation of summit decisions, empower sanctions and provide for
supranational political, administrative and financial institutions. Provisions
for an African monetary fund, central bank, investment bank, court of justice
and pan-African parliament are all covered in the treaty. Other items on the
agenda include ways of accelerating Africa's integration into the world economy,
regional conflicts, Libya, and democratisation (to July 12).

FT Surveys

Finland

TUESDAY 11

Foyle's library at auction

Christie's in London is to auction the private library of William Foyle, founder
of London's Foyle's bookstore. The collection comprises some 4,000 books
including works by Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens and the Bronte sisters. It will
form the largest private British book collection at auction for more than 20
years and is expected to fetch more than Dollars 6m (Pounds 3.9m) (to July 13).

Turkish PM visits Azerbaijan

Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer visits Baku in Azerbaijan for talks with
Haydar Aliyev, the Azeri president, about regional security and military
co-operation. The leaders will talk about the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, the
Baku-Ceyhan pipeline and Azeri gas delivery to Ankara. The countries are
developing the US backed Dollars 2.7bn Baku-Ceyhan oil project that will pipe
oil from Azerbaijan via Georgia to Turkey.

Canada and Costa Rica

Canada begins free trade negotiations with Costa Rica in Ottawa. Lloyd
Pettigrew, Canadian international trade minister, has said that he hopes a new
trade agreement may be reached to eliminate the chief tariffs, perhaps as early
as next spring.

FT Surveys

Slovenia

WEDNESDAY 12

Unicef publishes progress

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) publishes its annual Progress of
Nations report which aims to record progress toward fulfilling the aims of the
1990 world summit for children. The report notes important advances in many
areas of health and education including greater equality for girls. But it says
Aids threatens to reverse many of these gains, not only in Africa, but in Asia,
and parts of central Europe and Latin America, where the disease is spreading
rapidly.

Unicef says prevention campaigns must be directed at adolescents, especially
before they start active sexual life.

Schussel visits Brussels

Wolfgang Schussel, the Austrian chancellor, visits the European Commission in
Brussels for talks in which the EU executive is expected to make clear its
hostility towards the planned referendum in Austria aimed at rallying public
anger against Vienna's diplomatic isolation within the EU.

British gold auction

Britain holds a gold auction of about 25 tonnes in London. This will be the
second in a series of six sales by the Bank of England at intervals of two
months since May 2000 as part of a programme to reduce Britain's gold holdings
to 300 tonnes.

Russians launch Zvezda

Russia launches the Zvezda service module for the international space station
from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Delays to the Dollars 60bn project
have included two failures of Proton rockets.

G8 foreign ministers meet

The two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Eight countries
starts in Miyazaki's seaside resort, in south-west Japan. Chaired by Japan's
Yohei Kono, ministers will discuss issues including United Nations reform.
Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, suddenly cancelled recently, to the
surprise of Japan's government officials.

FRIDAY 14

WTO reviews EU trade

The World Trade Organisation publishes a fresh review of the European Union's
trade policies and practices. The secretariat report says the EU has a generally
open market with low tariff barriers but that trade protection in the
agriculture and textiles sector is substantial. It also notes that the EU does
the bulk of its trade under preferential arrangements. These cover all but eight
of its trading partners, though the latter include heavyweights Japan, the US,
Canada, Hong Kong and South Korea.

FT Surveys

Global Custody Engineering

Holidays

France, Bastille Day

SATURDAY 15

Net names becoming scarce

The board of directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (Icann) meets in Yokohama, Japan, to consider the introduction of new
top-level domains for net addresses. Icann, the global body charged with
administering generic top-level domain names such as .com, .org and .net, wants
to add others because explosive internet growth means the existing ones are
becoming saturated. However, introducing new names may well lead to more name
disputes. Edited by Martin Mulligan Fax 44 171 873 3196

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July 5, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION: Saudi offer on output pushes oil price down PLAN FOR
EXTRA 500,000 BARRELS A DAY ANGERS SOME LEADING PRODUCERS:

BYLINE: By PAUL SOLMAN

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 520 words

Saudi Arabia's offer to boost its oil output by 500,000 barrels a day sent oil
prices tumbling yesterday and angered other leading producers.

Iran and Iraq attacked the plan, announced late on Monday, saying Saudi Arabia
had acted without consulting other members of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, while Venezuela said it opposed increasing supplies.

Oil markets were caught off guard by the Saudi announcement, which came when the
New York Mercantile Exchange was closed for the Independence Day holiday and
London's International Petroleum Exchange shut early for the same reason.

After London trading resumed yesterday morning, the benchmark August futures
contract for Brent blend fell more than Dollars 1 to just under Dollars 30 a
barrel, and it closed down Dollars 1.52 at Dollars 29.58.

While analysts and traders waited for normal business to resume in the US, it
remained unclear when and how Saudi Arabia intended to release the extra oil.

Riyadh's original statement had said that output could be increased within the
next few days if prices did not fall.

But Libya yesterday played down suggestions that Saudi Arabia might act
unilaterally. Later, Iran and Kuwait also said they had been assured by Ali
al-Niami, the Saudi oil minister, that Opec members would be consulted on
production increases. The United Arab Emirates, offering its reaction to the
Saudi plan, said it backed any collective move to bring down prices.

Oil prices have remained stubbornly high at around Dollars 30 a barrel for the
past few months, in spite of moves by Opec to ease the voluntary output limits
put in place last year when Brent was around Dollars 10. In March, Opec agreed
to reduce the production limits by 1.7m barrels a day, and last month it added
another 708,000 barrels to daily output, though much of that was accounted for
by producers who were overshooting targets.

The cartel wants to bring crude back to around Dollars 25. Many in the market
believe another 500,000 barrels a day could push prices significantly lower.

However, analysts said the announcement from Riyadh was important not so much
because of the figure but because it showed that Saudi Arabia - the world's
largest oil producer and key opinion leader within Opec - was serious about
providing enough oil to bring prices down.

"So far, Saudi Arabia and Opec seem to have spent more time trying to forge a
consensus than actually addressing the issue of whether there is enough oil to
calm the market," one analyst said yesterday. "Because of this, prices have
remained high.

"This latest statement sends the message that Saudi Arabia wants lower prices
and really is prepared to produce more oil to bring them about."

The US, the world's biggest oil consumer and the driving force behind recent
calls for lower prices, welcomed Saudi Arabia's initiative, with Al Gore,
vice-president, urging petrol companies to pass lower crude prices on at the
pumps.

Rising petrol prices have become a key political issue in the US in its election
year. Editorial Comment, Page 20 Crude reality, Page 21

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June 28, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS: House agrees Cuba food deal

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER and PASCAL FLETCHER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 361 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON and HAVANA

Republicans in the House of Representatives agreed a deal early yesterday likely
to ease restrictions on food and medicine sales to Cuba and four other countries
facing unilateral US sanctions.

The agreement follows a tough battle within the party between proponents of an
easing of sanctions, led by George Nethercutt of Washington, and those led by
Cuban-American deputies opposed to any relaxation while Fidel Castro remains in
power.

As part of the agreement, the opponents succeeded in putting into law current
regulations banning US tourist travel to Cuba and forbidding the use of public
or private US finance to back US food and medicine sales to that country.

The other countries affected by the measure, likely to be attached to unrelated
legislation to go to the House floor this week, are Iran, Libya, Sudan and North
Korea. Similar legislation has passed the Senate.

Mr Nethercutt said yesterday he thought food and medicines should not be used as
a tool of foreign policy, and said American farmers should benefit in time for
this year's harvest. He estimated the move could be worth Dollars 7bn in US farm
sales.

The Clinton administration said it supported the easing of food and medicine
sanctions on Cuba, but expressed concern that the measure interfered with the
president's prerogative to pursue foreign policy. The proposal would require
congressional approval of any unilateral embargo of food and medicine except
during wartime or for national security purposes.

Mr Nethercutt said he did not think that concern would lead to a presidential
veto. "I think members of both parties would resist any veto," he said.

The development is the latest in a series suggesting that US enthusiasm for
sanctions has waned. Mr Nethercutt tried a similar sanctions-easing move last
year, but failed. The measure is likely to be attached on legislation to go to
the House floor this week.

In Havana, government commentators chose to present the move by the Republicans
more as a political victory rather than a commercial opportunity. "It's Cuba's
victory, Cuba's survival, that has led to this," a state television journalist
said.

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 28, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 3

WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS: House agrees Cuba food deal

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER and PASCAL FLETCHER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 356 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON and HAVANA

Republicans in the House of Representatives agreed a deal early yesterday likely
to ease restrictions on food and medicine sales to Cuba and four other countries
facing unilateral US sanctions.

The agreement follows a tough battle within the party between proponents of an
easing of sanctions, led by George Nethercutt of Washington, and those led by
Cuban-American deputies opposed to any relaxation while Fidel Castro remains in
power.

As part of the agreement, the opponents succeeded in putting into law current
regulations banning US tourist travel to Cuba and forbidding the use of public
or private US finance to back US food and medicine sales to that country.

The other countries affected by the measure, likely to be attached to unrelated
legislation to go to the House floor this week, are Iran, Libya, Sudan and North
Korea. Similar legislation has passed the Senate.

Mr Nethercutt said yesterday he thought food and medicines should not be used as
a tool of foreign policy, and said American farmers should benefit in time for
this year's harvest. He estimated the move could be worth Dollars 7bn in US farm
sales.

In Havana, government commentators chose to present the move by the Republicans
more as a political victory rather than a commercial opportunity. "It's Cuba's
victory, Cuba's survival, that has led to this," a state television journalist
said.

* Today could bring an end to the saga of Elian Gonzales, the focus of an
international custody dispute after he was shipwrecked off the Florida shore
last year, Nancy Dunne writes from Washington.

If the Supreme Court does not issue an injunction by 4pm Eastern Standard Time,
Elian's Cuban father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, will be free to take him home.

He has been staying in a Washington house with his father, stepmother, half
brother and playmates, sent by Cuban leader Fidel Castro to re-orient him to
life in Cuba.

In a dramatic raid by federal agents on April 22, Elian was plucked from the
care of his Miami relatives after they refused to turn him over to his father.

Both sides of the family have been since keeping low profiles.

LOAD-DATE: June 27, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 28, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 2

WORLD NEWS: US & CANADA: Republicans pave way for deal on Cuba

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER and PASCAL FLETCHER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: US & CANADA; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 468 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON and HAVANA

Republicans in the House of Representatives agreed a deal early yesterday likely
to ease restrictions on food and medicine sales to Cuba and four other countries
facing unilateral US sanctions.

The agreement follows a tough battle within the party between proponents of an
easing of sanctions, led by George Nethercutt of Washington, and those led by
Cuban-American lawmakers, opposed to any relaxation while Fidel Castro remains
in power.

As part of the agreement, the opponents succeeded in putting into law current
regulations banning US tourist travel to Cuba and forbidding the use of public
or private US finance to back US food and medicine sales to that country.

The other countries affected by the measure, likely to be attached to unrelated
legislation to go to the House floor this week, are Iran, Libya, Sudan and North
Korea. Similar legislation has passed the Senate.

Mr Nethercutt said yesterday he thought food and medicines should not be used as
a tool of foreign policy, and said American farmers should benefit in time for
this year's harvest. He estimated the move could be worth Dollars 7bn in US farm
sales.

The Clinton administration said it supported the easing of food and medicine
sanctions on Cuba, but expressed concern that the measure interfered with the
president's prerogative to pursue foreign policy. The proposal would require
congressional approval of any unilateral embargo of food and medicine except
during wartime or for national security purposes.

Mr Nethercutt said he did not think that concern would lead to a presidential
veto. "I think members of both parties would resist any veto," he said.

The development is the latest in a series suggesting that US enthusiasm for
sanctions has waned. Mr Nethercutt tried a similar sanctions easing move last
year, but failed. The measure is likely to be attached on legislation to go to
the House floor this week, probably relating to military construction.

In Havana, government commentators chose to present the move by the Republicans
more as a political victory rather than a commercial opportunity.

"It's Cuba's victory, Cuba's survival, that has led to this," state television
journalist Reinaldo Taladrid said, adding that it vindicated President Fidel
Castro's policy of resistance without concessions to Washington's longstanding
economic and political pressure.

Cuban state media briefly reported the Congress initiative but made a point of
saying that without accompanying US financing facilities the proposed food and
medicine sales would be practically impossible.

The Cuban president has acknowledged the food and medicine sales idea as
"important" and "necessary", but warned the US embargo would remain largely
intact, including curbs on finance and shipping and travel to Cuba.

LOAD-DATE: June 27, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

June 24, 2000, Saturday Surveys LON1

FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT: Say it with flowers North Korea is starting to come out
of the coLd. John Owen-Davies gives his impressions of the country as he visits
an aid workers' conference

BYLINE: By JOHN OWEN-DAVIS

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1758 words

"I know all about England," said the official guide as we drove on a lonely
highway to North Korea's northern city of Huichon. "The River Thames is 340km
long, all Englishmen carry umbrellas and there are thick fogs."

Like many of the people I met during a one-week visit to the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, he spoke English, was courteous, correct and inquisitive, and
keen on sports and statistics.

And they all made reference to North Korea's 'Great Leader", the late Kim 11
Sung, and his reclusive son, 'Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, who held a historic
summit meeting last week wtth South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, aimed at
easing halt a century of conflict on the Korean peninsula.

I tempered the guide's impressions of England arid then, to the amusement of
fellow passengers' I was unable to answer a question on how much of my native
Wales was mountainous. The next question was: "Have you ever fired a pistol?

In Huichun, about 200kni north of Pyongyang, the capital, I played snooker with
our drivers before lunch where conversation topics included William Shakesneare
.lnhn Milton. Arthur Conan Doyle, the death of the Princess of Wales, Elton John
and life in Europe

But the mood of the nine-member party soon changed. A visit to a Huichon
hospital, in a scenic area surrounded by jagged peaks, underlined the serious
decline of North Korea's public health service, once the,envy of many developing
countries. Equipment was inadequate, supplies of antibiotics and anaesthetics
were low, sanitation and heating were poor, and freezing winds whistled through
broken windows.

It was the same story at hospitals we visited in Kaesong near the frontier with
South Korea, where im soldiers square off at one of the cold war's last
remaining flashpoints and in Anjo, Kujang and Hyangsan, all north of Pyongyang

One hospital doctor in Anju, when asked for his equipment wish-list, was
unstoppable in reply: "Opei'ating equipment, diagnostic equipment, X-ray
machines, ECG equipment, ambulance, transport for staff"

A European nurse with a leading relief organisation described as shocking' the
lack of anaesthetics. "There is no gas. They don't have the equipment, including
masks. They can give local anaesthetics and a very few country hospitals can do
spinals," she said.

In 1 )-Y6, Huichon was hit by floods and landslides in what was the start of a
cycle of natural disasters in the world's last Stalinist state. These have added
to crippling economic and food woes triggered by the break-up of the Soviet
Union,. which was an important ally North Korea has never been able to feed
itself

There are questions surrounding the aftermath of the floods and the
anprecedented flow of US, United Nations amid other international aid to North
Korea a country of about 22m people with the world's largest military force
after China, the US, Russia and India. Washington had labelled it a rogue state
this this week it was announced that the ITS State Department now viewed it,
Libya amid Iran as "states of concern"

The number ot deaths from mnalnutrition and disease since 1995 is unknown. Some
international aid officials. with access to about 0 per cent of the total
population, put the figure at between 800,000 and I Sm and say the worst was
ovei by late 199'i. North Korea's figure is believed to be about 2t1t1,t)t)IJ,
they add.

There are allegations that some aid has been diverted. But one leading foreign
aid official said. "We know that at least a very high proportion of it goes to
where we think it has been going. where it is supposed to go.

Both in Huiclion and the southern city of Kaesong where you can hear the lilting
strains of Korean love songs intersper sed with mar- tial music being beamed
towards South Korea, fresh earthworks to protect against floods are visible.

For Kim's people, reunification is an oft-mentioned priority. Commonly heard
phrases included: "We yearn for reunification. We want confederation. One
country, two systems."

Some North Koreans are prepared to talk on topics such as the 1950-53 Korean
war, including, for those old enough, memories of the war itself. But they
emphasise the blame lies mainly with the Americans, not their fellow Koreans.

It is difficult for some foreigners to see how unificalion even confederation.

can be workable without a major upheaval, in stark contrast to the free-market
democratic policies of the south, the north leaves some visitors juggling with
words such as "bizarre", "illusion", "surreal" and a "nightmare of conformity".

For the first-time visitor to North Korea, it is almost impossible to know what
to expect. But it is likely that most of the few thousand foreigners granted
visas each year find thin experience less daunting than they thought it would
be. lhternational imures sions of what is happening depend largely on what
peopIe are shown, always under strict supervision. "Personal security is no
problem. You are never going to be attacked but there are people watching you,"
said Marie-France Bourgeois, a Canadian aid worker with, experience in the
country.

In Pyongyang's Koryo Hotel, where some room doors lock only from the outside,
even trying to buy a local map can pose problems. "Why do you want this?" a
security man asked as I went to pay for one in a bookshop. I explained about my
visits to the International Federation. "Ah. The Red Cross," he said, smiling as
he made the sign of the cross with his fingers.

Other sections of the coinmunity also recognise the red cross amid red crescent
emblems which are emblazoned on white Land Cruisers used by the national Red
Cross society and the International Federation (of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies). Children sometimes return waves from 'the vehicles, as do soldiers
at road barricades.

Foreign relief officials said the extent to which North Korea has opened up
since the first international aid workers arrived in late 1995 was notable. "The
people are seeing foreigners from an array of countries. People know they (aid
workers) are here and trying to assist them. ln 1997, they ran away, one said in
Pyongyang.

The North Korean adventure, for those opting to trave1 hv air instead of train
begins before hoarding an aged Soviet-built Ilyushin-62 of Air Koryo (Korea) in
Beflinir for the twice- weekly, 90-minute flight to Pyongyang, where about 100
foreign aid workers amid diplomats from 30 countries live,

On my flight, there were Japanese, African amid UN passport holders, as well as
dark-suited North Komreans with the obligatory "Great Leader" lapel badges and
large carrier bags stuffed with cigarettes and other items. Some North Koreans
had elaborate flower arrangements to pay respect, once home, to Kim Il Sung, who
died in 1994.

On board, foreigners were given a 40-page, English-language in-flight magazine
extolling the virtues of Kim Jong 11 and his country, with stories and pictures
on topics such -as "Fish Ponds Full of Joy", "Extremely Good Luck of Korea" and
"In the Spirit of Self-Reliance".

While disembarking in Pyongyang, an Irish aid worker advised me not to throw
away or deface the in-flight magazine I was carrying. Tampering with such
material would be a punishable offence.

There were occasional official smiles at the airport as security officials
checked baggage for prohibited items such as telescopes, wireless apparatus or
"hostile" publications, video tapes and film.

After a 25km drive, on a well-maintained but almost deserted road, the first
sight of Pyongyang is a giant pyramid structure - the unfinished 105-storey
Ryugyong, designed to be the world's largest hotel with 3,000 rooms. No one will
say when, or if, it might be completed.

-Lack of cash? Contract disputes?

Before booking into the cavernous 45-storey Koryo Hotel, it was obligatory to
queue with returning businessmen, newly married couples and other foreign guests
to lay flowers in front of the 30-metre high Grand Monument, a bronze statue of
Kim Il Sung.

A first impression is conformity - from elaborate moinuments and drab
Soviet-style buildings to generally unsmiling people on spotlessly clean
streets. Power cuts, apparently more frequent earlier this year, stop the city's
busy tramcars in their tracks.

But cracks in the stereotype do appear. Occasionally, a man will exchange nods
with a foreigner, and the odd baseball caps and designer clothes can be seen.

Coca-Cola, with Christmas markings on cans, is available at a Japanese-type
restaurant patronised by civilians, soldiers and aid workers. Foreigners
generally pay in US dollars --about Dollars 30 tom food amid drink for four
people.

A popular pastime among foreigners is to try to win smiles from attractive, but
robot-like women directing traffic at intersections. "Win some, lose some," one
driver said as he failed to get even a sideways glance. "But they will never
smile when you have a woman in the car," he added.

Visitors get another perspective on the city from the top of the 170-metre high
Tower of the Juche Idea (a philosophy to promote independence .and
self-sufficiency). To one side is a relatively new sports complex that includes
the massive May day stadium, bowling alleys, other buildings and accommodation.

In front is the Taedong River, now home to the US intelligence-gathering ship,
Pueblo, captured by the North Koreans in 1968. Directly across the river are
spacious history and art museums and the Kim II Sting Square.

'It is very hard and challenging here," said a South American aid worker. "But
there have been changes since 1995. There are more cars, especially Mercedes and
BMWs, in the city and more foreigners. There is also more tolerance of
outsiders."

Friday evening is party time for aid workers and diplomats, who live in guarded
diplomatic compounds. The meeting place, with bar and disco music, is in a
buildings used by the UN's World Food Programme.

Shouting above loud music, an aid worker said heavy snow was likely overnight.
He was correct. Snow was thick on the ground and still falling as we drove to
the airport early the next day. But our Beijing-bound Ilyushin took off thanks
to squads of people who cleared the runway with makeshift shovels.

( John Owen-Davies, a former Reuters foreign correspondent and bureau chief in
Asia and Africa, visited North Korea as a consultant writer for the "World
Disasters Report" to be published by the Geneva-based International Federation
01 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on June 28.

LOAD-DATE: June 27, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited

1269 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 23, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS: High petrol prices turn heat on Bush's oil allies: The
Republican contender finds himself in an uncomfortable position, report Richard
Wolffe and Stephen Fidler:

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER and RICHARD WOLFFE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 844 words

Rising political heat over surging US petrolprices has placed George W. Bush,
the Republican presidential candidate, in a uniquely uncomfortable position.

Politically and personally, the Texas governor is so close to the oil industry
that his campaign faces persistent questions about whether his policy positions
have been unduly influenced by his relationship with large and small
corporations alike. Mr Bush's advisers insist the suggested criticism is
misplaced. "I don't think he's influenced any more or any less by the oil
industry than by any other American economic interest," said one adviser.

Whatever the true degree of influence, there is little doubt that Mr Bush and
some of his closest friends and advisers are deeply immersed in the oil and gas
industry. Don Evans, chairman of the Bush campaign, is also chairman of Tom
Brown, an independent oil and gas company with a strong position in natural gas
in the Rocky Mountains.

Mr Evans is one of the governor's closest friends, and their relationship dates
back to 1975, when Mr Bush returned home to the oil boomtown of Midland, West
Texas, after leaving Harvard. The governor's first oil job, researching property
records, soon led to the creation of his own small company called Arbusto
(Spanish for Bush) which invested in low-risk oil wells.

"I lived the energy industry," Mr Bush wrote in his autobiography. "I understand
its ups and downs. I also know its strategic importance to the United States of
America. Access to energy is a mainstay of our national security."

They are sentiments shared by Dick Cheney, the former defence secretary who is
heading the search for the governor's vice-presidential candidate and is a
leading Bush adviser on foreign affairs.

Mr Cheney, now chief executive of Halliburton, the world's largest oil field
service company, recently attacked the Clinton administration's policy towards
Iran for blocking US investment.

The Bush campaign insists Mr Cheney's comments do not reflect a shift in the
governor's policy towards Iran. Dov Zakheim, who advises Mr Bush on
international security issues, said the governor had made clear in a letter in
April to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations that there
could be no improvement in relations with Iran until 13 Jews facing spying
charges were either released or received a fair trial.

"I believe that America must judge the Iranian regime by its conduct toward the
13," the letter said. Mr Zakheim said the statement was a "pretty fair
indication of where (Mr Bush) he's coming from".

Bush campaign advisers said he believed relations with leading oil states such
as Iran and Libya should depend on improvements in their behaviour across a
range of issues including weapons proliferation.

However, Mr Cheney's comments highlight a deeper problem for the Bush campaign
which vice-president Al Gore is keen to exploit.

On Wednesday, he conceded it was "fair" for the Federal Trade Commission to
investigate possible price-gouging in the Midwest, but stopped far short of his
rival in criticising the industry. Mr Gore said in Iowa that it was time "to put
our feet on the brakes of what may well be big oil's price-gouging".

Instead Mr Bush has consistently attacked the Clinton administration for
imposing onerous clean air regulations on industry and for failing to convince
Middle Eastern allies to increase oil supplies. He also said he would consider
cutting the federal tax as a way of alleviating prices at the pump.

Oil and gas companies have backed Mr Bush overwhelmingly compared to their
support for Mr Gore. According to the independent Center for Responsive
Politics, the industry contributed Dollars 1.46m to the Bush campaign by early
of May, compared with just Dollars 95,460 to Mr Gore's campaign.

Mr Bush is close to the Alaskan senator Frank Murkowski, who chairs the Senate
energy committee and is one of the most outspoken critics of the
administration's energy policies.

Mr Murkowski - who has earned a reputation for championing the oil industry's
interests - has co-written a bill to provide incentives for oil and gas
production, alongside opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska
to oil exploration.

Mr Murkowski's staff deny the Alaskan senator is an energy adviser to Mr Bush,
despite his move last week to stand in for the governor to deliver an energy
speech in Washington. When asked yesterday if the two men disagree on any point
of energy policy, one staffer said: "I can't think of one off the top of my
head, but that doesn't mean to say they don't."

Fuel price report due soon

US antitrust regulators are to report next month on their investigation into
high Midwestern gasoline prices, Robert Pitofsky, Federal Trade Commission
chairman said yesterday.

Mr Pitofsky made the remarks after meeting Ohio lawmakers about gasoline retail
prices that now top Dollars 2 a gallon in Chicago, Milwaukee and other parts of
the Midwest.

Motorists in much of the country pay about 50 cents a gallon less.

LOAD-DATE: June 22, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited

1270 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 23, 2000, Friday USA Edition 2

WORLD NEWS: US & CANADA: Bush campaign finds it more comfortable to duck the
gasoline price issue: Supported by the oil and gas industry, the candidate has
largely kept silent. Richard Wolffe and Stephen Fidler report:

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER and RICHARD WOLFFE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: US & CANADA; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 877 words

Rising political heat over surging US gasoline prices has placed George W. Bush,
the Republican presidential candidate, in a uniquely uncomfortable position.

Politically and personally, the Texas governor is so close to the oil industry
that his campaign faces persistent questions about whether his policy positions
have been unduly influenced by his relationship with large and small
corporations alike.

Mr Bush's advisers insist the suggested criticism is misplaced. "I don't think
he's influenced any more or any less by the oil industry than by any other
American economic interest," said one adviser.

Whatever the true degree of influence, there is little doubt that Mr Bush and
some of his closest friends and advisers are deeply immersed in the oil and gas
industry. Don Evans, chairman of the Bush campaign, is also chairman of Tom
Brown, an independent oil and gas company with a strong position in natural gas
in the Rocky Mountains.

Mr Evans is one of the governor's closest friends, and their relationship dates
back to 1975, when Mr Bush returned home to the oil boomtown of Midland, West
Texas, after leaving Harvard. The governor's first oil job, researching property
records, soon led to the creation of his own small company called Arbusto
(Spanish for Bush) which invested in low-risk oil wells.

"I lived the energy industry," Mr Bush wrote in his autobiography. "I understand
its ups and downs. I also know its strategic importance to the United States of
America. Access to energy is a mainstay of our national security."

They are sentiments shared by Dick Cheney, the former defence secretary who is
heading the search for the governor's vice-presidential candidate and is a
leading Bush adviser on foreign affairs.

Mr Cheney, now chief executive of Halliburton, the world's largest oil field
service company, recently attacked the Clinton administration's policy towards
Iran for blocking US investment.

The Bush campaign insists Mr Cheney's comments do not reflect a shift in the
governor's policy towards Iran. Dov Zakheim, who advises Mr Bush on
international security issues, said the governor had made clear in a letter in
April to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations that there
could be no improvement in relations with Iran until 13 Jews facing spying
charges were either released or received a fair trial.

"I believe that America must judge the Iranian regime by its conduct toward the
13," the letter said. Mr Zakheim said the statement was a "pretty fair
indication of where (Mr Bush) he's coming from".

Bush campaign advisers said he believed relations with leading oil states such
as Iran and Libya should depend on improvements in their behaviour across a
range of issues including weapons proliferation.

However, Mr Cheney's comments highlight a deeper problem for the Bush campaign
which vice-president Al Gore is keen to exploit. Whatever the influence of the
oil industry on his decision-making, Mr Bush has found it hard to speak out on
the populist issue of gasoline prices in the critical Midwestern battleground.

On Wednesday, he conceded it was "fair" for the Federal Trade Commission to
investigate possible price-gouging in the Midwest, but stopped far short of his
rival in criticising the industry. Mr Gore said in Iowa that it was time "to put
our feet on the brakes of what may well be big oil's price-gouging".

Instead Mr Bush has consistently attacked the Clinton administration for
imposing onerous clean air regulations on industry and for failing to convince
Middle Eastern allies to increase oil supplies. He also said he would consider
cutting the federal tax as a way of alleviating prices at the pump.

Oil and gas companies have backed Mr Bush overwhelmingly compared to their
support for Mr Gore. According to the independent Centre for Responsive
Politics, the industry contributed Dollars 1.46m to the Bush campaign by early
of May, compared with just Dollars 95,460 to Mr Gore's campaign.

Mr Bush is close to the Alaskan senator Frank Murkowski, who chairs the Senate
energy committee and is one of the most outspoken critics of the
administration's energy policies.

Mr Murkowski - who has earned a reputation for championing the oil industry's
interests - has co-written a bill to provide incentives for oil and gas
production, alongside opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska
to oil exploration.

Mr Murkowski's staff deny the Alaskan senator is an energy adviser to Mr Bush,
despite his move last week to stand in for the governor to deliver an energy
speech in Washington. When asked yesterday if the two men disagree on any point
of energy policy, one staffer said: "I can't think of one off the top of my
head, but that doesn't mean to say they don't."

Report soon on Midwest fuel prices

US antitrust regulators are to report next month on their investigation into
high Midwestern gasoline prices, Robert Pitofsky, Federal Trade Commission
chairman said yesterday. Mr Pitofsky made the remarks after meeting Ohio
lawmakers about gasoline retail prices that now top Dollars 2 a gallon in
Chicago, Milwaukee and other parts of the Midwest.

Motorists in much of the country pay about 50 cents a gallon less.

LOAD-DATE: June 22, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited

1271 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 22, 2000, Thursday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: US & CANADA: US 'close to' deal on easing Cuba sanctions

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: US & CANADA; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 390 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

Republicans in the House of Representatives said yesterday that a deal was close
that would allow passage of legislation to ease food and medicine sales to Cuba
and four other countries facing US sanctions.

The measure would allow sales of US food and medicine - for cash only - to Iran,
Sudan, Libya, North Korea and Cuba. If it goes ahead, the proposal may be
attached to an agricultural spending bill expected next week to go to the House
floor. Similar legislation has passed in the Senate, but had seemed doomed in
the House because of objections from the leadership, led by Tom DeLay, the
Republican whip, to including Cuba.

The movement towards a deal followed a 90-minute meeting on Tuesday night with
Dick Armey, the House majority leader; Mr DeLay; Cuban-American lawmakers
Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; and proponents of easing sanctions,
led by George Nethercutt of Washington state.

"We're close but there is no deal yet. The actual agreement is still sensitive
and fragile," said Tom McArthur, spokesman for Mr Nethercutt. Mr Nethercutt has
said if the proposal came to the House floor it would have the support of more
than 300 legislators.

Department of Agriculture estimates suggest the value of the five markets for US
farm exports could eventually amount to Dollars 7bn, of which Cuba would account
for about Dollars 1bn. However, the restrictions limiting purchases only to cash
pay ments would probably reduce this number.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted down, by 59-41, a proposal from Christopher Dodd of
Connecticut to create a bipartisan commission to initiate a review of US policy
towards Cuba. Mr Dodd had sought to encourage reconsideration of US policy to
Cuba after Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, goes.

The farm lobby has played an important part in the move to ease sanctions,
reflecting the financial difficulties of many US farmers.

According to some on Capitol Hill, the political undercurrents influencing Cuba
policy have been changing. Some lawmakers had been swayed by the granting of
Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and by the decision to ease
sanctions against North Korea.

The Elian Gonzalez case had also had an impact, by emphasising the suffering of
many in Cuba and by weakening the grip of anti-Castro Cuban-Americans on the
Republican party.

LOAD-DATE: June 21, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited

1272 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 15, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: TRADE: Group targets Cuba trade

BYLINE: By DEBORAH MCGREGOR

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: TRADE; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 330 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

A group of prominent Cuban-American leaders yesterday launched a public
relations offensive aimed at countering business lobbyists' efforts to persuade
Congress to ease economic sanctions on Cuba.

The move came as House Republican leaders hardened their position against a
proposal to remove limits on sales of food and medicine to Cuba.

Leaders are still looking for a graceful exit on the issue, which has divided
their ranks and held up a big agriculture spending bill. No date has been set
for a House vote.

The Cuban-American community, stung by their failure to prevail in the case of
Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban boy who sparked a bitter custody battle, has
targeted several congressional districts with television advertisements
supporting US sanctions on Cuba and warning that any easing would only
strengthen the hand of Fidel Castro.

"The time has come to remind the American people what Fidel Castro stands for
and what America stands for," said Jorge Mas, the chairman of the Cuban American
National Foundation.

"It's time to push back."

Farm and business groups have stepped up their own lobbying efforts in recent
days, saying that sanctions have cut off US exports from a potentially lucrative
market and hurt Cuban citizens without changing Mr Castro's behaviour.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has been urging lawmakers to support the
Cuba initiative, saying the lifting of sanctions on agricultural exports "is
critical to US farmers and ranchers".

In recent days, the Cuba provision has become a magnet for other foreign policy
disputes. For instance, a pro-Israel group opposes any easing of the sanctions
policy, saying it would be a boon to Iran.

Indeed, Dick Armey, the House majority leader, who strongly opposes any easing
of Cuba sanctions, has expressed confidence that the provision will ultimately
fail once lawmakers focus on the fact that it extends to countries other than
just Cuba, such as Iran, Libya and Sudan.

LOAD-DATE: June 14, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited

1273 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 9, 2000, Friday USA Edition 2

WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS: Panic sets in as spending bills pile up FEDERAL BUDGET
SEASON INTERNAL WRANGLES ADD TO THE LEGISLATIVE LOGJAM THREATENING INTERNATIONAL
POLICY INITIATI:

BYLINE: By DEBORAH MCGREGOR

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 761 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The ritualistic chaos of the federal budget season has once again convulsed
Congress but this year there is a difference: gridlock has gone global.

As Republican leaders struggle with the biggest task the constitution has
entrusted to them - passing the 13 annual spending bills that keep the federal
government running - a number of international initiatives have become stuck in
the procedural wheels.

Proposals for easing economic sanctions against Cuba, new money to support US
peacekeepers in Kosovo and fresh funding for activities to combat the narcotics
trade in Latin America have been thrust into limbo.

The Republicans, who control Congress, still hope they can break the legislative
logjam and set a timetable for an orderly exit later this year, leaving enough
time for members to hit the campaign trail before the November elections.

But with fewer than 45 legislative days left on the calendar, the early stages
of panic are already setting in.

The various spending bills provide funding for the next fiscal year, beginning
on October 1. Republican leaders in the House hope to pass eight of the 13
spending bills within the next two weeks - a dauntingly ambitious goal.

Meanwhile the Senate, which must pass its own version of the 13 bills, has
become hopelessly entangled in internal battles. A near-feud between Republican
leader Trent Lott and his Democratic counterpart, Tom Daschle, over legislative
priorities has threatened to derail not just the spending bills but most other
legislation as well.

The Cuba sanctions issue is a good example of how the process - never easy - has
become unusually difficult this year. The sanctions provision would ease
restrictions on US sales of food and medicine to Cuba, as well as Libya, North
Korea, Iran and Sudan. It was inserted in the agriculture spending bill by a
Republican member of Congress and gained majority support after the House voted
solidly in favour of normalising trade relations with China.

House Republican leaders had argued that the China initiative would help speed
the pace of reform in Beijing, and they appeared to have made their case so well
that Cuba seemed the next logical target for Congress's affection.

However, key House leaders had no such intention. While they worked hard to
secure passage of the China bill, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, both of Texas, are
adamantly opposed to easing the 40-year-old ban on exports to Cuba. They have
been fighting to get the provision knocked off the agriculture bill.

This week, Mr Armey vowed that the Cuba initiative will not survive when the
bill is taken up for a House vote next week. It is unclear what the outcome will
be, but several members of the black congressional caucus, who recently returned
from Cuba, strongly favour lifting the sanctions and have signalled that they
will fight to retain the provision.

The funds for Kosovo peacekeeping and anti-narcotics efforts in Colombia and
other Latin American countries have become entangled in a slightly different
web.

They were originally included in an emergency spending bill that passed the
House but ran afoul of Mr Lott in the Senate. He was angered that the House had
pumped up the price tag on the total emergency package to Dollars 13bn, more
than double President Clinton's original request.

Mr Lott said he would not bring the emergency bill up for a Senate vote but
would break it into smaller, less costly pieces and add them to individual
spending bills. That has turned into a procedural nightmare.

"We knew that breaking up that bill would turn into chaos, and that's exactly
what's happened," complained one Republican House aide.

The feuding has spilled beyond the budget bills. Also delayed by the Senate
acrimony is legislation to increase the number of highly skilled foreign workers
eligible for H-1B visas to help ease the shortage of high-technology workers in
the US.

That bill, along with electronic signature legislation, has been a priority of
high-tech lobbyists. But, in a sign that old politics still trumps the new
economy, the measure has become stuck.

One veteran budget analyst suggests that the current stalemate bodes ill for an
early exit for legislators this year.

In past election years, however, the pattern of history is clear: the longer
Congress stays in Washington, trying to wrap up its business, the less well the
majority party does in the elections. It is a lesson that congressional
Democrats no doubt have in mind as they attempt to obstruct and foil their
Republican rivals.

LOAD-DATE: June 8, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited

1274 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 7, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: EUROPE: Yugoslavia 'exporting grain for oil and gas'

BYLINE: By IRENA GUZELOVA

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: EUROPE; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 336 words

DATELINE: BELGRADE

The government of Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslav president, is exporting wheat and
maize in return for oil and gas, undermining the international community's
attempts to dismantle the regime's financial underpinnings, a report shows.

The Washington and Brussels-based International Crisis Group asserts that grain
exports are supplying 25 per cent of Serbia's hard currency. Grain is also
bartered for oil and gas from Iraq, Libya, Syria, Russia and Ukraine. It notes
that European Union and US economic sanctions have been poorly implemented and
have enabled Mr Milosevic and his associates to exploit their grip over key
Yugoslav resources and industries.

By providing wheat to the wheat-surplus country, international humanitarian
organisations are assisting the cash-strapped regime in exporting its own
reserves, the report says.

For a decade the government has exploited the farmers of Vojvodina, the plain
north of Belgrade and central Europe's traditional bread basket, by paying them
below-market prices and limiting their access to the free market. The government
then sells the grain at international prices.

Farmers have few alternatives but to deliver their wheat to state-owned mills.
Most do not have their own silos and cannot obtain the necessary permits to sell
wheat themselves. Police regularly harass farmers who sell grain outside
government-controlled outlets. If caught, they are fined Dollars 2,000, a
fortune in a country where the average salary is DM90 (Euros 46, Dollars 43) a
month.

Although the maize market is freer, farmers cannot easily obtain the relevant
permit to export the crop.

The report claims Jugoimport, Yugoslavia's defence procurement agency, exports
grain to Libya, Syria and, under the UN "oil-for-food programme", to Iraq, with
which it has a long history of collaboration.

From late 1997 and through 1998, a Jugoimport subsidiary called Atera was
permitted on at least five occasions to export goods to Iraq under the UN
oil-for-food programme.

LOAD-DATE: June 6, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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1275 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 6, 2000, Tuesday Surveys ENE1

SURVEY - FT WORLD ENERGY REVIEW: Europe warms up for the big gas changeover: The
deadline for the EU's directive seeking the liberalisation of some of the
industry is fast approaching, writes Robert Corzine

BYLINE: By ROBERT CORZINE

SECTION: SURVEY - FT WORLD ENERGY REVIEW; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1522 words

Change is not a commodity that has been highly valued in Europe's natural gas
industry, for many years one of the most conservative and untransparent of
industrial sectors within the European Union. The industry's structure and
business culture hark back to another era. A few powerful national monopolies
still dominate the sector, the structure of which is more of an exclusive
gentleman's club than late 20th century business models.

Although many of the club's rules were unwritten, a strict code of conduct has
traditionally governed relationships between members, and especially between the
two main classes of member: the big gas producers and suppliers from outside the
EU and the mainly national monopolies which supplied gas to local distributors
within the borders of individual EU countries.

Critics of the industry have long complained that change was not the only
concept that was alien to the club's members. Until recently, competition and
liberalisation were words rarely heard in the cosy confines of the industry.

But all that may be about to change, as the late summer deadline for the
adoption of the EU's gas directive aimed at liberalising at least some elements
of the most closely held energy market in Europe loom into view.

For many of Europe's largest industrial energy users, the directive is long
overdue, and trails some way behind the opening of the electricity sector to
competition.

Many also view the gas directive as being inadequate to the task of creating a
pan-European version of the open, competitive gas markets that have helped to
enhance the competitveness of manufacturing industries in the US and UK, the
world's two most liberalised gas markets.

Those who favour the less prescriptive and gradualist approach adopted by the EU
say the conditions which fostered radical change in those countries are absent
in mainland Europe.

They point out that the US and UK are blessed with abundant reserves of domestic
natural gas, whereas Europe depends on a handful of distant suppliers, such as
Russia, Algeria, Norway and Libya, for most of its supplies. They also say it
would be reckless to ignore the issue of security and diversity of gas supplies
at the expense of an overriding emphasis on the wholesale price of gas supplies
within the EU.

But even though the EU has opted for a cautious approach to market opening,
there is a consensus that change - and perhaps radical change - is inevitable,
even though the evolution of the industry into a genuinely competitive market
may take a decade or two.

"Over the medium to long-term, economic fundamentals that favour change will
prevail," says Panos Cavoulacos, partner at consultants Booz, Allen Hamilton in
Paris. "The industry has a small number of important and big enterprises in both
the upstream (production sector) and the midstream (transporation and supply)
sector."

Although the tightly-knit and heavily-integrated structure of the industry
argues against rapid change, he says, the interests of the big end-users are no
longer aligned with those of the producers and shippers. "People may be able to
find ways to stop change, but not for long."

But that has not prevented some of the established national gas companies from
"mounting an impressive rearguard action," says Peter Hughes, a European gas
expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Paris, who likens the present
atmosphere of uncertainty that pervades the industry to a "phoney war".

It is clear that the existing participants in the industry, be they producers or
shippers, as well as potential entrants, are sizing each other up and working on
alternative strategies to pursue, depending on how quickly competitive forces
take hold.

The intentions of the established national supply monopolies in the EU are the
subject of intense speculation among upstream producers, be they the big western
integrated oil companies or the main gas exporters to Europe. Few believe that
the monopolies have abandoned their traditional instincts.

"One concern is the monopolies might lose bits to each other," says one oil
company executive. "They might sell bits of their domestic markets to
like-minded souls in order to get national regulators off their backs."

The regulatory arrangements for the liberalisation have been left in the hands
of individual national governments, a situation that many see as a potential
drag on the speedy spread of competition given that they have widely varying
enforcement powers. Many analysts point out that the radical transformation of
the UK domestic gas market in the 1990s owed as much to aggressive regulation as
it did to government policies.

The enthusiam and appetite for liberalisation varies widely in EU member states.
France, where Gaz de France rules supreme, is widely seen to be the most
conspicuous laggard among the leading European economies.

The market opening as envisaged by the government is the minimum allowed under
EU rules.

Gaz de France has promised to offer third-party access to its pipeline grid in
August, but few potential competitors are likely to avail themselves of the
offer in any significant fashion, given that the government has been a less than
enthusiastic backer of liberalisation.

Germany, the EU's biggest gas market, may prove more attractive, even though
there are aspects of liberalisation - such as negotiated rather than mandatory
third-party access to existing pipeline networks - that concern possible
entrants.

There is also a widespread belief that the rapid rise of electricity competition
in the

country may not prove to be a model for the gas sector. But even though few
expect to see a dramatic change in August, there is intense speculation in the
industry that events in Germany will eventually play a big - if not decisive
role - in the wider European gas liberalisation.

Germany is not only the biggest market, but it also lies at the heart of the
European gas grid and is the destination for a number of big trunk pipelines
that bring gas into Europe from distant Russian and Norwegian fields. Many
expect to see trading hubs develop around the German market as new entrants try
to identify and to exploit niches which the incumbent suppliers may have
overlooked.

The intentions of Ruhrgas, the dominant German gas company, have also been the
subject of intense debate, especially as to whether its eventual strategy may
diverge from the European gas plans of some of its big shareholders, which
include the world's three biggest oil companies.

Italy has been the scene of somewhat surprising developments this year, with the
government backing a tougher plan and faster timetable towards liberalisation
than many had expected, including Snam, the incumbent monopoly owned by the Eni
integrated energy group.

Snam has been especially exercised about the market share and gas import limits
imposed by the government to help to ensure that competition takes hold. It also
will require Snam to open its pipeline network - the tariffs for which will be
set by an independent regulator - to third parties.

Advocates of competition, however, are generally wary of arrangements which
allow the dominant national companies to maintain common ownership of
transportation and marketing, even if they are placed in separate companies.

"It's not enough to ring-fence the pipes," says one gas industry executive. "You
need physical separation." Such separation is an issue in Spain, where, in
contrast to mature markets such as Germany and Italy, the gas pipeline network
is still being developed. Spain also offers evidence that once liberalisation
measures have begun to put into place, governments often feel confident to
proceed at a faster pace than envisaged.

Last year, the Madrid government amended a 1998 law in a move which brought
forward key liberalisation dates so that 70 per cent of gas customers became
eligible to choose their suppliers from the start of this year, rather than the
original 55 per cent.

Most analysts agree that the attitudes of governments will be crucial to the
speed with which competition takes hold in Europe's gas industry. But there are
a number of other unquantifiable factors. Consumer expectations, especially
among large industrial and commercial gas users and multinational companies
seeking pan-European energy supply solutions, will probably be crucial in
speeding up the spread of competition.

There is also a big question mark over the continuing unity of purpose among the
membership of Europe's old gas club. If one of the big incumbent players decides
to break ranks with the others and pursue an aggressive pan-European approach,
all the present assumptions about the pace of liberalisation would have to be
re-examined.

A similar exercise would have to take place if leading exporters to Europe, such
as Gazprom of Russia, decided their long-term self-interest was to break away
from the old model first.

So even though gas competition in the EU is unlikely to be introduced with a
"Big Bang", it may not necessarily be ushered in with a whimper either.

LOAD-DATE: June 5, 2000

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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1276 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

June 6, 2000, Tuesday Surveys ENE1

SURVEY - FT WORLD ENERGY REVIEW: Competition will not be as hot as electricity
sector: GERMANY/AUSTRIA by Tony Barber in Frankfurt: In liberalising the whole
of its gas market this August, Germany leads the European Union. However, do not
expect big cuts or fierce rivalry

BYLINE: By TONY BARBER

SECTION: SURVEY - FT WORLD ENERGY REVIEW; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 804 words

DATELINE: FRANKFURT:

If there is one point of agreement among German gas industry executives, it is
that the liberalisation of the market in August is unlikely to cause a sudden,
steep fall in prices for businesses and consumers.

In contrast to the electricity sector, where deregulation sparked a frenzy of
competition and sharp price cuts, the gas industry is expected to adapt more
slowly to free market conditions.

"Competition in gas will flare up, especially over large industrial customers
and distributors. But it will not happen as quickly or as sharply as was the
case with electricity," says Ulrich Hartmann, chairman of Veba, the utility
group.

According to industry executives, one reason is that gas has competed for many
years against other energy sources, notably heating oil and coal.

Gas consumption in Germany reached 80bn cu m in 1998, but accounted for only 21
per cent of the overall primary energy market, compared with 40 per cent for oil
and 25 per cent for coal. This has obliged gas companies to keep prices
competitive, the executives say.

A more important reason is that in common with other big EU countries, such as
France, Italy and Spain, Germany imports most of its gas.

Russia, the Netherlands and Norway provide almost 80 per cent of Germany's
needs. As a result, Germany has little spare capacity in its pipeline network.
Conditions are different from those obtaining in the electricity market, where
supply was so abundant in Germany and neighbouring countries that price
competition soon took off.

George Krude, an industry analyst at Ruhrgas, which accounts for 60 per cent of
German gas supplies, says liberalisation was successful in the UK because of an
abundance of gas and a large number of producers. Such conditions do not exist
in continental Europe.

However, other industry specialists say this argument does not hold water. In a
letter to the European Commission, the German government and German gas
associations published last February, the European Federation of Energy Traders
suggested that Germany could do more to open up its gas market.

The federation, representing 42 energy companies in the European Union, said
Germany ought to make production more competitive, allow more choice of imports
and accept a better system of regulation for access to the gas network. Since
then, some companies have taken up the challenge of competition, even though the
EU's Gas Directive does not come officially into effect until August 10.

Thyssengas, a subsidiary of RWE, the utility group, has opened up its grid to
outside companies, including newcomers to the market, and has received access to
the grids of competitors, says Ulrich Eberhard, head of transit and procurement
for the company.

"There is room for liberalisation. We can't set prices at the border, but there
is a possibility of cutting costs internally."

The federal German cartel office has expressed considerable doubts about whether
the gas industry's proposals for third party access to grids would provide a
sufficient basis for competition in the next few years.

According to independent industry analysts, competition would develop even more
quickly if importers widened their range of suppliers to include other
producers, such as Libya. Among other things, this would have the effect of
boosting supply and perhaps decoupling continental European gas prices from oil
prices, a development already in place in the US and UK.

As things stand, gas prices in Germany may even go up later this year because
they are indexed to oil. The sharp rise in world oil prices since March 1999 is
still feeding through into higher prices for gas.

Even so, Germany has gone further than other EU countries in throwing open its
entire market to competition in August. Some are liberalising only 20 per cent
of their market this year and may wait until the EU's final deadline of 2008
before completing the process.

Austria, Germany's southern neighbour, falls somewhere in the middle. The
government recently decided to open the gas market in two stages.

In the first phase, consumers of more than 25m cu m a year will be able to
choose their supplier from August. Although this is no more than required under
the EU's directive, eligible buyers will account for 50 per cent of total gas
demand. In the second stage, total liberalisation of the market will take effect
from the end of 2002.

This is a faster timetable than the Austrian gas industry had originally wanted,
but the government says it is aiming to push the necessary legislation through
parliament later this summer.

As in Germany, opening the Austrian gas market may take longer than was the case
with electricity.

About 70 per cent of Austria's gas imports are linked to long-term contracts,
some covering the next two decades.

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June 1, 2000, Thursday Surveys Surv

SURVEY - FT EXPORTER: Intrade show

SECTION: SURVEY - FT EXPORTER; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 52 words

Intrade show

Intrade 2000, the annual exhibition for international trade, runs at the Olympia
II exhibition centre in London from June 6th-8th. The event includes a wide
range of seminars on opportunities in different markets, including Iran and
Libya, on export finance and logistics, and on e-commerce.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 31, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS - EUROPE: Clinton visit takes on air of a farewell to Europe

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 552 words

DATELINE: LISBON

President Bill Clinton arrived yesterday in Lisbon to begin what US officials
have billed as his last tour of Europe. In fact, this may not be Mr Clinton's
last visit: the recent advances in the Northern Ireland peace process suggest he
is likely to pay one more visit there. But his trip, which takes in Portugal,
Germany, Russia and Ukraine, has a retrospective air about it.

His meeting today in Lisbon with Romano Prodi, the president of the European
Commission, Antonio Guterres, the Portuguese prime minister, and other senior
European officials will be the 14th summit he has attended with European
leaders, a process that he himself instituted.

Since Mr Clinton's first presidential trip to Europe in January 1994 the breadth
and depth of the US-EU relationship has expanded from the trade-dominated
discussions of earlier years.

The tenor has changed too. In 1994 relations between the US and Europe were
under strain over western inaction in Bosnia. Since then Nato has been expanded
to include three countries of the former Soviet bloc, and the war in Bosnia and
"ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo have been halted.

The European Union has taken action that many considered impossible six years
ago. Its single currency project has become a reality and, although the currency
has been weak, it has not been accompanied by US-European recrimination.

US officials say Mr Clinton should take his share of the credit. Sandy Berger,
Mr Clinton's national security adviser, said: "There was no discussion about a
Europe whole and free. . . The president outlined in 1994 a blueprint, and in
the years since we have made significant progress." Some in Europe share this
view. Mr Clinton will on Friday in Aachen become only the third American - after
George Marshall and Henry Kissinger - and the only US president in 50 years to
receive the Charlemagne prize for his contribution to European unity.

"This is the most pro-EU administration that there has been. For this reason
alone, he deserves the Charlemagne prize," said one European diplomat in
Washington.

US officials said the message Mr Clinton had carried through his administration
would be reinforced this week, as European governments enter an intensive debate
about the union: the US favours deepening and broadening the EU.

Yet, as his critics also point out, Mr Clinton must share his responsibility for
some of the most bitter disputes. He signed the Helms-Burton legislation that
attempted to sanction foreign companies doing business in Cuba, and laws
targeted at European comp-anies doing business in Iran and Libya.

Broader tensions exist too. Philip Gordon of Brookings Institution argues: "The
clouds on the horizon seem to me to be two. . . One is European resentment of
American domination and unilateralism. . . The other one is the other side of
the coin, which is US constraints and resentment about the burdens of this
European strategy."

However, the economic relationship still dominates with more than Dollars 450bn
(Pounds 304bn) of two-way trade a year between the two sides. Partly for this
reason, trade disputes colour the rest of the relationship. Disputes over beef,
bananas, aircraft subsidies, foreign sales corporations and other issues simmer.
None is likely to be resolved at today's meeting.

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May 22, 2000, Monday London Edition 2

NATIONAL NEWS: Oddities of 'ordinary' Lockerbie murder trial: The Pounds 22m
prosecution in a Scottish court is more reminiscent of the war crimes tribunal
in The Hague, says John Mason

BYLINE: By JOHN MASON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 673 words

The road signs from Utrecht pointing the way to the Lockerbie trial say
"Scottish Court in the Netherlands". The main gates of the court complex, in a
former US airbase outside the Dutch town, are manned exclusively by constables
from the small Dumfries and Galloway police force.

Such oddities, typical of the uniqueness of the trial of two Libyans accused of
bombing Pan Am flight 103 and murdering 270 people, are immediately obvious to
anyone arriving at the Camp Zeist airbase.

According to the legal rule books, the trial is an ordinary murder prosecution
brought under the rules of the Scottish legal system. It is plainly anything
but.

The Lockerbie trial, which resumes tomorrow, is not just the largest murder
prosecution ever staged within the British legal system, a fact borne out by the
dozens of victims' relatives who attend the hearings. There is also evidence
everywhere of the intense international political wrangling through the United
Nations to ensure the trial took place.

The bullet-proof screen that divides the court protagonists from the public, the
small army of translators and the cosmopolitan mix of press and public,
including silent diplomats, are more reminiscent of the UN's current Yugoslav
war crimes tribunal in The Hague than any British court.

The facilities have cost Pounds 22m so far to provide. Much of this has been met
by the US, the main driving force behind the UN sanctions against Libya that
finally led to the surrender of the two defendants to stand trial.

But despite the political undercurrents, the proceedings inside the courtroom
could as well be taking place in Glasgow or Edinburgh with the Lord Advocate,
Scotland's leading law officer, heading the prosecution before four senior
judges.

The charges are that Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa
Fhimah, both members of the Libyan security services, murdered the 259
passengers and crew and 11 Lockerbie residents by smuggling on board a bomb
concealed inside a radio-cassette player.

The two defendants deny the charges and instead incriminate members of two
Palestinian organisations, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
General Command and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front.

The first week's evidence covered the accounts of police and civilians dealing
with the debris that fell on the Scottish town after the aircraft exploded in
mid-air.

The accounts of witnesses were frequently chilling, as they told of the massive
fire-ball after the explosion, the sight of sections of the aircraft falling to
the ground and of human body parts lying in the streets.

The defence lawyers made no challenges to the often repetitive evidence. At the
prompting of the judges, this initial phase was halted and the evidence agreed,
saving three weeks of court time and the calling of more than 200 witnesses.

This week, forensic experts will give evidence but the prosecution is giving
little advance warning of which witnesses will be called. Partly this is for
security reasons, partly because there is a fear that advance publicity might
scare off some foreign witnesses who cannot be compelled to attend.

The prosecution's reticence may also be tactical. The first week showed there
was little dispute that Pan Am flight 103 exploded as a result of a bomb. The
far more contentious issue will be linking the bombing to the two accused men.

Exactly how the prosecution intends establishing this link - and how the two
Libyans intend refuting it - will be at the heart of the trial in coming months.
One of the prosecution witnesses, Mohamed Abo Talb, is one of those accused of
the bombing by the two defendants. The evidence of such witnesses could be
critical to the outcome of the trial.

Estimates of the trial's length vary. Some legal experts predict it could be
over within four months if the defendants choose not to go into the witness box.
Court officials who have relocated to the Netherlands are sticking to the
cautious guess it could last a year.

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May 10, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 3

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Solana urges Estrada to seek speedy end to hostage
crisis

BYLINE: By HUGH WILLIAMSON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 349 words

DATELINE: MANILA

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy representative, yesterday
urged Joseph Estrada, Philippine president, to seek a rapid, peaceful end to the
hostagecrisis on the southern island of Jolo in which 21 people, including seven
from EU countries, are being held.

"The EU is sure the Philippine government will continue this line in trying to
finding a negotiated resolution to this crisis," he said. He also praised Manila
for its handling of a "delicate and complicated situation".

Mr Solana and Mr Estrada also discussed establishing a more formal "channel for
humanitarian aid" to help the hostages. Mr Solana brought thermal blankets, food
and medicines from Europe to send to the hostages.

Negotiations were focused last night on securing medical treatment for two of
the hostages who are seriously ill, or their possible release. Renate Wallert, a
German woman, has hypertension and Frenchman Stephane Loisy is believed to have
a urinary tract infection.

Meanwhile, a senior Libyan diplomat yesterday joined the negotiators on Jolo
island. Rajab Azzarouq was Libyan ambassador to Manila from 1990-1999. He helped
resolve two previous hostage incidents in the Philippines involving foreign
nationals.

Libya was the main supporter of the Moro National Liberation Front, which signed
a peace agreement with Manila in 1996.

Ronaldo Zamora, Mr Estrada's executive secretary, said Mr Azzarouq has
"extensive contacts with various factions of the Muslim community".

On arrival in Jolo, Mr Azzarouq labeled hostage-taking "un-Islamic". But a
senior Philippine government source questioned the role Mr Azzarouq could play
as "the Abu Sayyaf (the Islamic separatist group involved in the kidnapping)
does not have close ties with Libya".

In another shake-up to the government's negotiating team, Nur Misuari, the
government's chief negotiator, admitted yesterday he had been in effect
sidelined by Mr Estrada in favour of Ghazali Ibrahim, a prominent local Muslim
cleric.

The hostage-takers refused to negotiate with Mr Misuari, himself a former rebel
leader.

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May 10, 2000, Wednesday Surveys EGY1

SURVEY - EGYPT: Company with a finger in many export pies: While cotton remains
its main export, the group's interests range from tubular inspection services to
exotic fruit juice

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND

SECTION: SURVEY - EGYPT; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 850 words

Tamer Nassar is vice-president of the mid-sized Egyptian exporter Setcore. Mr
Nassar, 28, and his younger brother, Ayman, 26, returned from the US to Egypt in
1994 and their arrival happily coincided with the liberalisation of the Egyptian
cotton market.

Setcore was founded in 1972 by Mr Nassar's grandfather Said al-Tawil, now the
chairman of Egyptian businessman's association, who started out as a commodities
trader.

Like many privately-owned Egyptian companies, the group has interests in a wide
range of businesses but it stands out as one of the few private sector exporters
of any size. About 40 per cent of Setcore's revenues of Dollars 70m come from
exporting cotton through Alexandria port. The remainder comes from tubular
inspection services for the oil industry, exotic fruit juice and from
dealerships for Clark fork lift trucks and Bobcat digging equipment.

In partnership with Volkart Group of Switzerland, Setcore has been selling
Egyptian long-staple cotton to its main markets in Japan, South Korea and Italy
since 1994, when the market was liberalised after 30 years of public sector
monopoly. In 1999, the group exported 15,000 tonnes of cotton in 230 kilogramme
bales out of total Egyptian exports of 89,000 tonnes.

Before 1994, under the Nasser and Sadat regimes, all elements of the supply
chain from the raw crop, to ginning - when the seed is removed from the raw
cotton - spinning, weaving and marketing was in the hands of the state. All of
the Egyptian crop is long-staple or extra-long staple - the best in the world
because it is stronger, longer and allows the cotton to be spun into finer
yarns. The only competitor to Egyptian long-staple comes from the US, primarily
from the West Coast, which started production when the Egyptian market was under
state control.

Exporting cotton does not present the same problem as other commodities
according to Mr Nassar, because the customs authorities are familiar with the
product and the bureaucracy is relatively straightforward. Nor has the strong
Egyptian pound afflicted the company in the way that it has other exporters.
Both Setcore's raw cotton and the oil services business are priced in dollars so
"the pound is not really an issue for us", says Mr Nassar.

Setcore buys its cotton directly from farmers and gins the crop using both
private sector and public sector mills. There are six gins in Egypt and half
have been privatised since the economic reform process started in the mid-1990s.

"It's not an easy relationship but it works for both. It's a win-win thing for
both of us. This has been a good example of co-operation," Mr Nassar says.

Three years ago, Setcore tried to buy a part of a state-owned ginning factory
but "did not get the right answers" from the Egyptian authorities about the
status of the land and other assets and the future of the workforce. The group
is developing a green field site to gin cotton at a cost to Setcore of EPounds
20m (Dollars 6m) at Burg al-Arab outside Alexandria in partnership with the
Italian group Legnano to develop its ginning operations.

"The idea is not just to continue exporting cotton but to add some value," says
Mr Nassar.

Mr Tawil set up Egypt's first ice-cream business and obtained the license to
distribute Bobcat.

For management reasons, the group is now organised as a closed family
shareholding company, a structure that did not exist until two years ago. "It's
just a cleaner easier way to structure a company," says Mr Nassar.

As such, Setcore does not have to reveal its financial statements publicly and
is financed out of cash and by term loans from banks. Mr Nassar does not reject
the possibility of tapping the local capital markets but says that financing
arrangements are sufficient for the moment.

Mr Nassar is unwilling to divulge further details of the group's finances,
saying only that revenues have been growing by 10 per cent a year for the past
three years and that he is sanguine about the prospects for 2000.

If he has a gripe, it is the difficulty of finding suitably qualified personnel.
"It's definitely our number one problem right now. We've recently appointed a
human resources manager specifically to deal with the issue," he says.

There is also the question of the bureaucracy surrounding the importing of
equipment and spare parts. While tax administration and the company registration
process have improved markedly in recent years, importing procedures are
painful, particularly obtaining the requisite documentation.

"It can be a week it can a month. You're missing some stamp that's not on some
page. You have to pay very costly warehousing all because of some stamp," he
complains.

Mr Nassar is, however, excited about prospects for Setcore's specialist tubular
inspection business which employs 65 people. He sees export opportunities in
Algeria and Libya, from where has just returned. "We have a competitive
advantage. Communication is easier, our costs are less and we are closer to the
market," Mr Nassar says of Setcore's prospects in the Middle East.

James Drummond

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May 10, 2000, Wednesday Surveys EGY1

SURVEY - EGYPT: The search for new markets: EXPORTS by Mark Huband and James
Drummond: With potential growth at home limited, pressure is mounting for
Egyptian companies to find new buyers overseas and to expand their business
presence in the region

BYLINE: By JAMES DRUMMOND and MARK HUBAND

SECTION: SURVEY - EGYPT; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 1090 words

Dominating the prospects for Egypt's economic growth will be the ability to
expand existing markets and find new outlets for Egyptian goods. Lower than
expected gross domestic product growth of about 4 to 5 per cent in 1999-2000,
has heightened the need among leading Egyptian companies to find both new
markets for their goods and expand their business presence regionally to
compensate for the limited growth in the domestic market.

The past year has seen significant steps in the expanded application of the
bilateral free trade agreements that were signed in the past four years with
Jordan, Tunisia and, in particular, Morocco.

While the European Union accounts for about 44 per cent of Egypt's exports, the
regional goal of creating an Arab Free Trade Area (Afta) by 2008 is an integral
part of Egypt's trade expansion policy.

Since the cabinet reshuffle of October 1999, the government has refocused many
of its efforts to achieve higher growth on the promotion of exports, which must
rise by 11 per cent annually if the desired 7 per cent GDP growth target is to
be achieved. Since the reshuffle, the annual export growth target has been
raised to 20 per cent, as much as 2 per cent of which is expected to be earned
by streamlining the bureaucratic elements in the export system.

"The priorities are marketing, legal protection against dumping and an
improvement in the tariffs and tax umbrella," says Youssef Boutros-Ghali,
minister of economy and foreign trade. "All of this has to function properly if
the system is to function. It all has to be cleaned up."

However, despite new port facilities being created on the Red Sea and
Mediterranean coasts, Egypt lags far behind many countries in the Middle East
and sub-Saharan Africa in terms of the infrastructure needed for the export of
high value agricultural products, which offer the greatest new potential. Only
recently was it decided that Cairo airport should be equipped with a cold
storage facility allowing air transport of perishable goods, 40 per cent of
which are currently lost due to poor storage before export.

"Egypt is exporting less than 20 per cent of its manufactured goods. This is
very low," says Heba Handoussa, managing director of the Economic Research
Forum. "We have the skills. Now it's a question of marketing. GDP is growing at
5 per cent, which is about the limit. We need to export in order to accelerate
growth and job creation."

Pressure to improve export facilities has increasingly emerged from within the
economic sectors that have suffered most from the country's inadequate
infrastructure, burdensome and corrupt bureaucracy and lack of government
sensitivity to the rigid exchange rate regime's impact on exporters.

"What is really discouraging exports from Egypt is the exchange rate," says
Hussein el-Aguizy, founder of the Horticultural Exporters Improvement
Association (HEIA). "The euro devalued against the Egyptian pound by about 20
per cent last year. It makes it very difficult for us to compete. This is at the
core of encouraging exports."

HEIA says its members represent companies with exports valued at about Dollars
150m annually, a figure Mr el-Aguizy estimates could be tripled if the currency
were to be devalued. HEIA suggests an exchange rate of EPounds 5 to the US
dollar.

"I would like to see many, many things," says Mr el-Aguizy. "(Exporters) have to
be treated like the Israelis are treating their exporters," he says. "I mean,
there, all tractors and all chemicals are treated without taxes."

Finding new markets remains the main challenge, however. Egypt has been
negotiating a free trade partnership with the EU since 1995, but has yet to be
fully convinced that it can either compete with European companies in a free
Egyptian market, or secure adequate advantages for its own exports.

"We need to look at agriculture. It's a mistake to think that liberalising
agricultural trade is of no interest to net food importers

(such as Egypt)," says Mr Boutros-Ghali. "In most of these countries,
agriculture could be a major exporter. For Egypt, it could be a leading exporter
to the EU, if the EU opened up for horticultural products."

The government has sought to move beyond the bolstering of its bilateral trade
ties by seeking to strengthen the global position of emerging markets.

Egypt recently joined South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil and India in an informal
grouping which intends to hold regular consultations with a view to presenting a
more formidable front at the World Trade Organisation.

For Egypt in particular, as it focuses increasingly on exports as a means to
growth, a more favourable global climate is regarded as essential.

"The whole point is to figure out a way of coming to a consensus without having
to negotiate with 135 countries. The mechanisms for consensus aren't obvious,
and we want to preserve the one country-one vote system," Mr Boutros-Ghali says.

While the government seeks to streamline infrastructure and improve the terms of
trade in a bid to dent the Dollars 12bn trade deficit, pressure has mounted on
Egyptian companies to engage in an increasingly aggressive search for expansion
and acquisitions opportunities across the region.

Fleming CIIC and EFG-Hermes, Cairo's two leading investment banks have both
forged ahead in establishing region-wide business. Industry is now following
suit, building on the long-established regional presence of Egyptian
construction companies.

In February, Orascom Telecom (OT), Egypt's leading mobile telephone operator,
became the largest operator in the Middle East and Africa after agreeing to buy
80 per cent of Telecel International (TI), a pan-African telecommunications
company based in South Africa in a Dollars 213m deal.

In March, Arabian International Construction further consolidated its regional
position, with the formation of AIC Tunisia. The company now has operations in
Turkey, Kuwait, Libya, Tunisia and Uganda, whose combined value is expected by
the company to contribute 75 per cent of total revenues.

However, the government's concentration on exports, and the broader shift of
focus to Egypt's regional role by the private sector, has yet to lead to a
concerted process of tariff reduction.

This piecemeal approach remains an impediment to significant foreign direct
investment, despite an easing of import regulations, which saw an end to the
application of draconian rules of origin regulations, which had been imposed in
response to a 1998-99 liquidity crisis.

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May 10, 2000, Wednesday Surveys EGY1

SURVEY - EGYPT: Building eco-tourism with mud, salt and lost skills: A developer
is creating a strange and unusual tourist destination using local labour and
materials in a remote desert village

BYLINE: By ROBERT CORZINE

SECTION: SURVEY - EGYPT; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 659 words

Visions and visionaries are no strangers to Siwa, a remote oasis in Egypt's
western desert near the border with Libya.

It has long been famous for being the site of one of the three ancient oracles.
Alexander the Great was among those who have made the long journey through the
heat of the desert from the Mediterranean coast to visit the oasis. Siwa is
ringed by small wind-sculpted mountains and hills.

Oasis tourism may be a minority activity aimed at those whose taste in
relaxation runs to empty spaces and quiet contemplation, but for Egypt it
represents a small but important shade of diversity in its burgeoning tourism
industry.

However, developing modern tourist facilities at remote desert locations is not
only logistically taxing.

It can also be potentially damaging to an environment which, by its very nature,
is fragile. It is one that can easily be knocked off balance by over-zealous
builders.

The approach to development of Mounir Neamatalla, who is translating his vision
of how nature and people can co-exist in an "eco-tourist" project outside Siwa,
is anything but zealous.

Mr Neamatalla is president of Environmental Quality International, a Cairo-based
consultancy. He has plans for three separate developments in Siwa, aimed at
different types of visitors.

The one taking shape along the lower slopes of White Mountain outside Siwa
exemplifies the type of development he believes will attract the more
discriminating travellers who desire "a strange and unusual" destination.

The project was conceived around an abandoned village, after Mr Neamatalla had
bought the empty properties from local families.

Using traditional desert building techniques, practised almost exclusively by
local labour, the village is slowly being transformed into a surprisingly
spacious complex, in which a myriad of rooms, balconies and open spaces have
been imaginatively arranged.

In some, the actual sides of the mountain serve as a wall.

The development relies heavily on the traditional building skills of local
Siwis, who are of Berber origin.

Many such skills were in danger of disappearing in the face of an onslaught of
concrete: "The oldest master builder on the site was unemployed for 20 years,"
says Mr Neamatalla.

"Our investment in the community goes straight into the local economy. Almost
all our costs are labour."

The main building materials are rock salt and heavily saline mud from the
adjoining lake.

Over time and under the intense desert sun, the combination of materials dries
to a surprising hardness.

Mr Neamatalla says the project has produced other beneficial side-effects for
the local economy.

There has also been renewed interest in traditional building methods: "About 20
per cent of construction currently taking place is now in the traditional
style," he says.

As for the future of oasis tourism, Mr Neamatalla is sympathetic to the reasons
why generations of visionaries have sought refuge and insight in the dry,
seemingly empty spaces of the earth.

He believes that the desert will dictate the eventual scope of development: "The
desert limits what we can do. The oasis says where's there's water, and where
there is water there is life. So how much life can this oasis support? We think
34 rooms with many common walls half a metre thick and clustered around a water
and sewerage system."

Gazing over his creation in the blistering sun, Mr Neamatalla voices the eternal
concern of all creators: it is that his creation will attract the right type of
visitors - those who can appreciate tranquility and ancient culture amid one of
the cleanest environments on earth.

If passengers from a passing airliner looked down, what they would see of Siwa
would appear to be no more than a green dot in a surrounding sea of sand.

And so long as Siwa lacks an airport and remains at the end of a 800km drive
from Cairo, his wishes will probably come true.

Robert Corzine

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 9, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: TRADE: Total and Gazprom tipped in Iran gas deal TENDERING PROCESS
GOVERNMENT SET TO ANNOUNCE WINNER OF CONTRACT TO DEVELOP FURTHER PHASES OF SOUTH
PARS FIELD:

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: TRADE; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 406 words

DATELINE: TEHRAN

Iran will soon announce the results of its tender for development of further
phases of South Pars, one of the world's biggest gas fields, Mehdi Husseini, the
deputy oil minister, said yesterday.

Mr Husseini, quoted on state television, gave no further details of the
long-awaited contract. Industry sources said Total-Fina-Elf of France and
Russia's Gazprom were the frontrunners for a consortium to develop phases four
and five of South Pars in a deal valued at Dollars 1.5bn. But, they added, the
outcome was uncertain because of a paralysis in decision-making by the
government, which is locked in a power struggle between hardliners and reformist
supporters of President Mohammad Khatami.

Total-Fina-Elf is already developing phases two and three of South Pars in a
consortium with Gazprom and Petronas of Malaysia.

Royal Dutch-Shell, Petronas, Britain's BG and Gaz de France are also reported to
have submitted tenders for South Pars.

Internal critics of the National Iranian Oil Company say Iran paid Total too
much to develop phases two and three of South Pars and oppose giving the French
giant further contracts.

Iran's Petro Pars, which is already developing phase one of South Pars, has been
tipped to win the tender for phases six, seven and eight, although there are
doubts that Petro Pars can raise sufficient financing. Iranian media have
reported that Petro Pars had fallen 20 per cent behind schedule in phase one.

The buy-back contract for the onshore oilfield of Darkhoein is also expected to
be signed soon. Bijan Zanganeh, Iran's oil minister, said at the weekend that
Italy's ENI was leading the field of bidders which also includes Britain's Lasmo
and Total-Fina-Elf.

Iran's decision to allow foreign oil and gas companies to develop its natural
resources for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution has triggered a
heated debate, with hardliners suspicious of foreign exploitation.

Mr Zanganeh came under attack after Shell signed an Dollars 800m agreement last
November to develop the offshore Soroush and Nowruz oilfields. But international
oil executives believe there is a consensus within ruling circles that Iran must
attract foreign investment.

Under the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, the US threatens action against non-US
companies investing more than Dollars 20m a year in Iran's energy sector.
President Clinton has waived sanctions against Shell and Total-Fina-Elf.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 6, 2000, Saturday London Edition 3

NATIONAL NEWS: Palestinians 'suspects' in Pan Am case LOCKERBIE TRIAL ARAB GROUP
WAS INVESTIGATED FOR 18 MONTHS OVER AIRCRAFT BOMB:

BYLINE: By JOHN MASON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 435 words

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command was the
first organisation suspected of being responsible for the bombing of Pan Am
flight 103 that killed 270 people in December 1988, the Lockerbie trial heard
yesterday.

Police investigators confirmed the organisation came under suspicion because of
similarities with previous aviation terrorist incidents. But by June 1990 the
inquiry attention had shifted from the Palestinian group, the court heard.

On the third day of the trial, being held at a US air force base outside
Utrecht, lawyers for the two Libyans accused of the murders began
cross-examining police witnesses.

Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah deny the murders of
the 259 passengers and crew of the jumbo jet and 11 Lockerbie residents, and
charges of conspiracy to murder and breaching aviation security law. Both men
have indicated they will accuse the PFLPGC and 11 people of involvement in the
bombing.

Inspector Gordon Ferrie told Mr William Taylor, the barrister for Mr Megrahi,
that the crash had been treated as a criminal inquiry from at least the second
day, with the PFLPGC as the initial suspect.

Mr Ferrie said he had been aware that PFLPGC members had been arrested in
Germany a few months earlier for possessing a bomb and that a PFLPGC team, led
by convicted bomber Marwan Khreesat, had tried to blow up an Israeli El Al
airliner in flight between Rome and Tel Aviv in 1972.

In the attack, a barometric triggering device was used to set off the explosion
when the aircraft reached a pre-determined altitude.

The aircraft was damaged by the blast but was able to stay airborne. Three
PFLPGC members were later convicted in their absence after a trial in Italy.

Mr Khreesat was also among a group arrested in Frankfurt in October 1988, in
possession of a bomb packed into a Toshiba radio-cassette player, but was
quickly released, the court heard.

Richard Keen, for Mr Fhimah, cross-examined former police officer Stephen
Comerford over a "joint intelligence group" of British and foreign intelligence
agents who helped to recover material from the scene.

Mr Comerford agreed that there had been concern about recovering sensitive
material from the wreckage of the aircraft which had been carrying a number of
US intelligence agents.

After two days in which senior police officers had been questioned about the
impact of the disaster and the discovery of bodies in the aircraft wreckage,
senior counsel Alistair Campbell QC yesterday read out the names and addresses
of all 270 victims to a silent court.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 4, 2000, Thursday London Edition 3

NATIONAL NEWS: Lockerbie trial told of four-year plot PROSECUTION CASE LIBYANS
ACCUSED OF PLANTING BOMB THAT CLAIMED 270 LIVES:

BYLINE: By IAN BICKERTON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 444 words

DATELINE: NETHERLANDS

Two Libyans laid a trail of false identities, fake passports and bogus
businesses to cover their activities as members of the Libyan Intelligence
Services, carrying out the Lockerbie bombing, it was alleged yesterday.

Eleven and a half years after 270 people lost their lives when Pan Am Flight 103
exploded above Scotland, the trial of the two suspects finally began yesterday.

The trial, which will be the costliest in British legal history, is taking place
under Scottish law on neutral territory - a purpose-built secure compound at
Camp Zeist, a former US air base in the Netherlands. Preparations have already
cost Pounds 12m and the trial is expected to last a year.

After a decade of legal wrangling and the combined efforts of the US and UK
governments and the United Nations, Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and
Lamen Khalifa Fhimah appeared in the dock.

The prosecution claimed that a four-year plot led to the bombing, starting on
January 1 1985 and ending on the night of December 21 1988. The trail wound from
Tripoli in Libya, to Prague, in the Czech Republic; from Zurich, Switzerland, to
Chad in central Africa; and twisted from Berlin, Germany, to the Mediterranean
island of Malta via a network of safe houses, hotels and Libyan cultural centres
and offices.

Mr Megrahi was said to have been the head of security at Libyan Arab Airlines
and later director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli. Mr Fhimah was
alleged to have been station manager of Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta.

The court heard that in Zurich, Switzerland, they ordered and bought electronic
timers capable of detonating explosive devices, and in Malta they removed
airline luggage tags, bought clothing and an umbrella and packed that in a
suitcase along with an improvised device containing high-performance plastic
explosive hidden in a Toshiba radio cassette recorder.

The suitcase allegedly went by aircraft to Frankfurt and was tagged so it could
be carried on board the Pan Am flight bound for New York via London Heathrow. It
exploded in flight near Lockerbie.

All 259 passengers and crew died along with 11 people on the ground.

The defendants said nothing other than to confirm their identities. It took 20
minutes to read the three alternative charges: murder, conspiracy to murder or
contravention of the 1982 Aircraft Security Act.

Defence lawyers said their clients had pleaded not guilty. They lodged special
defences alleging the involvement of about 10 other individuals and members of
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

About 1,000 witnesses are expected to take the stand to set out the crown's
case.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 3, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

SHORTS: Lockerbie murder trial to start

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 33 words

Lockerbie murder trial to start

Two Libyans face charges of murdering 270 people at Lockerbie, beginning what is
set to become the longest and costliest trial in British legal history. Page 2

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May 3, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 2

NATIONAL NEWS: Lockerbie trial set to be most costly in history

BYLINE: By IAN BICKERTON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 288 words

DATELINE: NETHERLANDS

Two Libyans today face charges of murdering 270 people at Lockerbie, beginning
what is set to become the longest and costliest trial in British legal history .

All 259 passengers and crew, as well as 11 people on the ground, were killed on
December 21 1988 when Pan Am flight 103 was blown up. Two-thirds were American
and 44 British; the others came from 20 countries.

Relatives arrived in the Netherlands at the weekend. Most doubted the trial
would resolve their unanswered questions, key among them the perpetrators'
identity.

Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah will face three
alternative charges: murder, conspiracy to murder or contravention of the 1982
Aircraft Security Act.

The prosecution will allege that the pair were members of the Libyan
intelligence service and planted a bomb on the aircraft. The accused maintain
their innocence. Their lawyers are expected to employ a special defence blaming
"two organisations and 10 individuals".

The Libyans have been held at Camp Zeist, a former US air base 30 miles from
Amsterdam, since April 1999 when they were handed into Scottish police custody.
It has been declared Scottish territory for a trial expected to last at least a
year.

The Treasury met the Pounds 12m capital costs and will pay 80 per cent of the
Pounds 2m-a-month running expenses. The rest is to be met by Scotland's
governing executive. The US has so far paid Pounds 4.77m towards costs incurred
by relatives and will pay for two members of each victim's family to attend the
trial for a week.

The two will be free to return to Libya if acquitted. They cannot face fresh
charges elsewhere. If found guilty of murder they will serve life in Scotland.

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Financial Times (London,England)

May 3, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Lockerbie murder trial to start

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 34 words

Lockerbie murder trial to start

Potentially the longest and costliest trial in British legal history begins when
two Libyans are charged with murdering 270 people at Lockerbie, in Scotland. UK,
Page 8

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May 3, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: UK: Lockerbie murder trial starts today

BYLINE: By IAN BICKERTON

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: UK; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 434 words

DATELINE: ZEIST

What is set to become the longest and costliest trial in British legal history
begins today when two Libyans are charged with murdering 270 people at
Lockerbie, in Scotland.

All 259 passengers and crew, as well as 11 people on the ground, were killed on
December 21, 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded. Two-thirds of the total
number of victims are American, 44 are British and the others are from 20 other
countries.

Their relatives began arriving in the Netherlands at the weekend. Most expressed
doubts that the trial would resolve the many unanswered questions surrounding
the case, key among them being the identity of the perpetrators.

After a decade of international wrangling and a number of legal delays,
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah will face three
alternative charges: murder, conspiracy to murder or contravention of the 1982
Aircraft Security Act. The indictment makes no mention of motive.

The prosecution will allege they were members of the Libyan Intelligence Service
and planted a bomb, hidden in a radio cassette recorder, aboard the aircraft. It
will call 1,000 witnesses to press its case.

The accused maintain their innocence. Since April 1999, the Libyans have been
held at Camp Zeist, a former US air base 30 miles from Amsterdam, in the
Netherlands. It has been declared Scottish territory for a trial expected to
last a year. Warrants for the accused men's arrests were issued in November
1991. The British and US governments called on Muammer Gaddafi's Libyan
government to surrender them. Its failure to do so led to the imposition of
mandatory sanctions.

The suspects voluntarily surrendered into Scottish police custody on April 5,
1999 under a deal brokered by the United Nations.

The court building is a converted school. The site includes a prison, which was
originally intended as a nuclear shelter. A gymnasium has been converted into a
high-tech media centre for 230 journalists. The UK Treasury met the Pounds 12m
(Dollars 19m) capital costs and will pay 80 per cent of the running expenses, in
excess of Pounds 2m a month.

The US has so far paid Pounds 4.77m towards costs incurred by relatives and will
pay for two members of each victim's family to attend the hearing for one week.
The trial will be presided over by Lord Ranald Sutherland, Scotland's longest
serving judge. There is no jury.

If acquitted, the two accused would be free to return to Libya. They cannot be
extradited to the US, or elsewhere, to face fresh charges. If found guilty of
murder, they would serve a life sentence in Scotland.

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May 2, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: US worries on terrorism focus on Asia CONCERN SHIFTS
FROM MIDDLE EAST:

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 457 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The focus of US concern about terrorism directed against it continues to shift
from the Middle East to Asia, according to an assessment published yesterday by
the State Department.

The department's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report was critical
particularly of Afghanistan and Pakistan, though neither made it on to the list
of state sponsors of global terrorism. That list, as expected, remained
unchanged, comprising Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

"In 1999, the locus of terrorism directed against the US continued to shift from
the Middle East to South Asia," the report said.

It blamed the Taliban, the ultra-conservative rulers of Afghanistan, for
continuing to provide safe haven for international terrorists, particularly
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile, and his network.

The Taliban had provided logistical support to members of terrorist
organisations operating in Chechnya, Lebanon, Kosovo, Kashmir and elsewhere.

Individuals with links with Mr bin Laden had supported Chechen rebels, the
report said.

The report was critical of Pakistan for continuing to maintain formal diplomatic
relations with the Taliban.

"The US has made repeated requests to Islamabad to end support for elements
harbouring and training terrorists in Afghanistan and urged the government of
Pakistan to close certain Pakistani religious schools that serve as conduits for
terrorism," it said.

The report also said: "Credible reports continued to indicate official Pakistani
support for Kashmiri militant groups that engage in terrorism, such as the
Harakat al-Mujahadin."

The rise of south Asia as a centre for terrorism was not paralleled by a decline
in activity in the Middle East, where the report said planning, training and
terrorist actions continued last year at a level comparable with 1998.

Despite signs of political change in Iran, that country remained the most active
state sponsor of terorism, the report said.

The department remained sceptical of claims by Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan
leader, that his country had adopted an anti-terrorism stance. It "remained
unclear whether his claims of distancing Libya from its terrorist past signified
a change in policy".

Syria remained on the list. It "continued to provide safe haven and support to
several terrorist groups, some of which maintained training camps or other
facilities on Syrian territory".

However, fewer people were killed and wounded around the world in international
terrorist attacks last year than in the year: 233 died and 706 injured against
741 and 5,952 in 1998. But that was mainly due to the absence of attacks causing
mass casualties, and the number of terrorist attacks rose 43 per cent to 392
from 274.

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May 1, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: A father determined to see justice done: LOCKERBIE BOMBING CASE:
Ian Bickerton on one man's lengths to witness the trial of those accused of
killing his daughter

BYLINE: By IAN BICKERTON

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 533 words

Jim Swire has left a comfortable home near Birmingham for the concrete floor of
a tenement in the town of Zeist in the Netherlands. From there the 64-year-old
family doctor intends to cycle each day to witness the trial of two Libyans
accused of murdering his daughter Flora.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima are charged with blowing up
Pan Am Flight 103, which had left London bound for New York, above Lockerbie in
Scotland on December 21 1988. All 259 people on board were killed as well as 11
on the ground.

After more than a decade of international wrangling and 416 days in custody in
the Netherlands, the hearing against the pair begins on Wednesday.

The presence of Dr Swire illustrates the tenacity of the relatives of those who
died. He flew to Tripoli in 1991 and was granted a meeting with Muammer Gadaffi,
Libya's military leader. Yet he is not convinced the right suspects are on
trial.

He first set eyes on the two, screened behind protective glass, on Thursday.

"I don't feel anything," he says. "I have seen so much of them, in photographs
or on video. And I do not know whether they murdered my daughter." Flora, 23,
was on board the doomed flight.

The case, in a Dollars 20m (Pounds 12.6m) purpose-built court at Camp Zeist, a
former US military base about 30 miles from Amsterdam, will be tried under
Scottish law, after the two were handed over by Libya in a deal brokered by the
United Nations. It is set to be the longest and costliest trial in British
history. It could last 18 months and the final cost be as much as Pounds 100m.

At the pre-trial hearing the prosecution request for a further postponement was
rejected by Lord Sutherland, the presiding judge. Dr Swire, spokesman for UK
Families Flight 103 - the best-known UK support group for Lockerbie victims'
families - turned up in a removal van.

In the back was an assortment of furniture for the flat he is renting. It is one
of hundreds in a row of dull, grey apartment blocks on an estate near the court.

"I am determined not to be depressed by it," he says. "Anyway, it's only for a
year."

The bed for him and Jane, his wife, is a mattress on the floor. "It's quite a
nice mattress," says Mrs Swire, who will spend the first week there.

She had spent the afternoon cleaning, before going to explore the neighbourhood.
Among the sullen teenagers on the street she looked incongruous in her neat
skirt, scarf and jumper, her reading glasses dangling from her neck.

That morning Dr Swire watched as their new living room furniture - a battered
sofa - was lowered on ropes and pulleys from the fifth floor window of a 16th
century Amsterdam house.

He conducted a media interview on a mobile phone while the sofa swung perilously
above his head.

Their relief that the trial is finally about to begin is tempered by realism.
"It is up to Scottish criminal justice to do its utmost to ensure this trial
reaches its natural conclusion, which is a verdict," he says.

Returning late that evening, Dr Swire used a tiny torch to light the way. The
sofa, left in the entrance hall because he had not had time to haul it upstairs
in his dash to the court, had been stolen.

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 26, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: Postponement to be sought NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 120 words

LOCKERBIE TRIAL

Postponement to be sought

An application is to be made to postpone the Lockerbie trial, the Scottish Crown
Office confirmed yesterday. Colin Boyd, the Lord Advocate, will make the
application to the High Court after notice from the defence last week that there
will be 119 defence witnesses. It is being made on the grounds that the
prosecution has not been provided with any advance notice of any defence
witnesses despite repeated requests. The trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al
Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the two Libyans accused of blowing up a Pan
Am Boeing 747 over the Scottish town in December 1988, was due to start in the
Netherlands on May 3. The disaster killed 270 people.

LOAD-DATE: April 25, 2000

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April 25, 2000, Tuesday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Libya visit for top UK official

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 33 words

Libya visit for top UK official

A top British Foreign Office official is due in Libya today on the highest level
mission since the two countries agreed last year to restore diplomatic ties.

LOAD-DATE: April 24, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 20, 2000, Thursday Europe Edition 1

OBSERVER: Quite mad OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 180 words

Quite mad

First it was Vladimir Putin. Now a whole host of Russia's post-communist movers
and shakers have made it over to London, to tell British businessmen about the
tremendous opportunities in the place.

And even if the earnest speeches by the likes of Gazprom head Victor
Chernomyrdin and electricity boss Anatoly Chubais began to pall yesterday, one
guest struck a different note.

Vladimir Zhirinovksy, leader of the enigmatically named Liberal Democratic party
of Russia, has an alternative strategy for foreign investment. He doesn't want
any.

He reckons Russia should get close to Iraq and Libya rather than look to the
west. And as for Islamists, he explains: "We don't need to fight extremists.
We'll just send them to Europe."

Thankfully, Zhirinovsky's support isn't what it was - he got a massive 2.7 per
cent in last month's presidential elections.

He argues: "Unpredictability is the charm of Russia - you don't know what we're
about to do next." But Observer is pretty sure that every time he opens his
mouth, nonsense is certain to come out.

LOAD-DATE: April 19, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 15, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS - EUROPE: China may boycott weapons talks over security fears

BYLINE: By JAMES KYNGE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 288 words

DATELINE: BEIJING

China warned yesterday it might boycott arms control talks if its security
interests were jeopardised by US plans to build missile defence systems in east
Asia and the US.

The warning, by Sha Zukang, head of arms control and disarmament at the foreign
ministry, comes after US requests this month to resume dialogue on
non-proliferation talks suspended after Nato warplanes bombed Beijing's embassy
in Belgrade.

Mr Sha was quoted in the official China Daily newspaper as saying that China
would participate in arms control talks and treaties on condition they did not
undermine the global strategic balance or Beijing's own security interests.

China has made clear its opposition to US deployment in Asia of theatre missile
defence (TMD), a defensive shield that, in theory, would be able to shoot down
incoming missiles. It has threatened a military response if Washington was to
provide Beijing's arch-rival Taiwan with the system.

Mr Sha said its continued co-operation with western countries on arms control
and proliferation was undermined by US plans not only to establish TMD but also
to build a national missile defence (NMD) system covering US territory.

He criticised a "certain superpower" for developing its nuclear first-strike
capability while pushing ahead with plans for NMD - an unfinished technology -
which could neutralise a counter-strike from an adversary.

The US, despite its own refusal to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty
(CTBT), is keen to press China to control exports of materials, equipment and
technology for chemical and nuclear weapons to countries such as Pakistan, Libya
and others.

The US is also keen to get China to join the missile technology control regime.

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April 14, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: An umbrella against the world: The US believes it can shut
out the risk of nuclear attack with technology. Europeans think it may simply
make things worse

BYLINE: By PHILIP STEPHENS

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 1120 words

To eavesdrop on the security debate between the US and its European allies is to
hear two sides talking, sometimes shouting, past each other. Here are issues of
life and death, decisions to determine how the world can be made safe for our
children. Yet the transatlantic conversation is mired in mutual
misunderstanding.

We always knew that the Nato alliance could not escape the consequences of the
passing of the cold war. A strategy to constrain the Soviet nuclear menace would
not survive the emergence of the US as the single superpower.

Thus far there has been no great ruction. Squabbles have been patched up,
differences papered over in the formulation of the alliance's new strategic
doctrine. The fractures, though, are becoming visible. Two damaging disputes
loom: over US plans to build a shield against nuclear attack and over Europe's
hopes for its own defence capability. More than that, it is ever clearer that
the US and Europe look out on to different worlds.

For Europeans, the US seems an impregnable fortress. Economic might, advanced
technology and geography make it invincible. Its sophisticated weaponry is 15,
maybe 25, years ahead of any potential rival. Before too long it will have the
capacity to fight wars by remote control. If there is a single chink in its
armour, it lies in the reluctance of its leaders to accept that war will always
involve some casualties.

Now look through Washington's end of the telescope. Hegemony, it seems, brings
its own vulnerabilities. Sure, the risk of a Russian nuclear strike is now as
close as it gets to zero. But in the US mindset, the old cold war certainty of
Mutually Assured Destruction has been replaced by new, less calculable dangers.

America's very power makes it the target for rogue states and terrorists. The
Pax Americana has many enemies. Start with North Korea, Libya, Iraq, Iran.
Washington sees a world of loose nukes, lethal bugs and deadly chemicals. The
profileration of ballistic missile technology promises to give its foes the
means of delivering these weapons of mass destruction to US soil.

This threat is as real to Americans as it seems remote to most Europeans. There
is something else. US leaders believe they have both the duty and, most
importantly, the capacity to eliminate it. Victory over communism has been
followed by the triumph of US liberal capitalism. The US has the means - the
wealth and the technology - to live in a risk-free world.

I exaggerate somewhat here. But not much. The US project to build a National
Missile Defence (NMD) - all but certain to be given the go-ahead this summer -
unites together these two conflicting threads of intense insecurity and brash
self-confidence.

It is not enough that the US can launch massive pre-emptive strikes against
potential adversaries. Nor that it can deter any attack by promising to
eviscerate those responsible. It must innoculate itself against all threats. To
the familiar strategic doctrines of pre-emption and deterrence, Washington now
adds that of "futility": America's enemies must understand that any attack on
its territory would be a futile as well as a fatal gesture.

Here the transatlantic gulf opens. Europeans cannot contemplate living in this
world without risk. The so-called rogue states of the Middle East are on its
borders. So too are the Balkans and, beyond, a Russia which, for all that it is
impoverished, remains the world's second nuclear power. Money and technology
cannot remake geography; even if they could, Europe matches America in neither.

The disquiet runs deeper. Seen from Europe's side of the Atlantic, making
America safe will inevitably make the world more dangerous for its allies.
Abrogating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty would make Russia feel more
threatened. It would remove too the remaining, flimsy restraints on nuclear
proliferation.

Unsurprisingly, Russia refuses to accept that the US intends to spend tens of
billions of dollars building defences against the one-in- a-million chance of a
lone missile fired by, say, North Korea. Americans are not that stupid, one
European foreign minister visiting Moscow was recently told by his Russian
hosts.

So if the US builds missile defences, Russia will respond with more
sophisticated counter-measures. So too will China. In Beijing's eyes, NMD has
sinister implications. It might embolden a US-defended Taiwan to declare
independence. Safe behind its shield the US could threaten a first strike in the
confidence that it could neutralise any retaliation.

NMD also decouples US from European security. For decades, the Nato allies
sheltered under the same umbrella. Deterrence doctrine was built on the
presumption of shared vulnerability. Washington was as much at risk as Bonn or
Paris.

A shield around the US up-ends that balance. If there is a significant threat
from so-called rogue states, Europe becomes the obvious target - and its own
strategic defences are undermined. After all, if the US, with all those
thousands of missiles, has decided that deterrence is not enough, what purpose
is served by the much smaller British and French nuclear forces?

Washington offers answers to these questions. After a long period of silence,
the US has recently circulated a series of papers to its allies on threat
assessment and deterrence. There is an implicit rebuke to the Europeans for
failing to take seriously enough the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. Also the assertion that NMD is good for Europe as well as the US:
with their own security enhanced, Americans would be more rather than less
willing to come to the aid of its friends.

These are theoretical debates which can never be definitively settled. Suffice
it to say that the Europeans are pretty scornful of such assurances. Yet they
are also resigned to the prospect that the US will press ahead.

Tony Blair has indicated informally that Britain will permit the necessary
upgrading by the US of the Fylingdales radar station in Yorkshire. He could
hardly do otherwise. Britain will have to start thinking soon about a
replacement for its own Trident nuclear missile system. That makes it entirely
beholden to the US.

Other European governments talk of damage limitation: might Russia be persuaded
to amend the ABM treaty in return for American guarantees that the scope of NMD
will be severely restricted?

Behind all this, though, lies the earnest hope in Europe that the technology
will fail, that NMD simply won't work. Extraordinary, when you think about it.
Here is a project which the US sees as central to its security and yet its Nato
allies are willing it to fail. That's what happens when friends talk past each
other.

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April 8, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

BOOKS: Right to bear arms: The UN keeps tabs on warlords, but what about the
peacekeepers?David Buchan reports

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: BOOKS; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 973 words

DELIVER US FROM EVIL: Warlords and Peacekeepers in a World of Endless Conflict
by William Shawcross Bloomsbury Pounds 20 / Simon & Schuster Dollars 27.50, 416
pages

There are always several armed conflicts going on in the world, but we tend to
regard them individually. Newspapers focus their spotlights on one war at a
time, knowing their readers can only stomach so much gore at the breakfast
table.

William Shawcross takes a wider view. Since the end of the Cold War took the lid
off many ethnic conflicts, he has travelled extensively to tell of the epic
struggle between international peacekeepers and local warlords. Reckoning that
the warlords have stolen the headlines, he seeks to redress the balance and tell
the unsung tale of the peacekeepers, and the motives, compromises, bungles and
achievements of good men struggling against evil.

Inevitably, he focuses much on the United Nations, "the indispensable
institution", according to its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, in rejoinder to
Madeleine Albright's claim that the US is "the indispensable country".
Shawcross's book is the most readable account of UN peacekeeping you are ever
likely to get your hands on.

So what is the warlords v peacekeepers scorecard? You might think that the
series was going the warlords' way, with Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic
still sitting in their presidential palaces, and the likes of Foday Sankoh, the
rebel leader who has thuggishly fought his way into Sierra Leone's interim
government. But Shawcross sees spasmodic progress being made by the
international community. The 1990s started with "paralysis in Bosnia,
overambition, and a blind eye in Rwanda", and "ended with Russia tolerating
intern-ational intervention in Kosovo and joining China in approving a
peacemaking force in East Timor". There is also a case, which has been much made
during the Pinochet affair, that there is a new international morality, and
certainly new institutions to try to enforce it, like the UN's war crimes
tribunals for ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the move to set up a permanent war
crimes court for the world.

On the other hand - and there is always, as Shaw cross recognises, an "other
hand" - public opinion can force governments to move in contradictory ways, as
the Clinton administration found when pictures of starving people pushed the US
to intervene in Somalia until the sight of dead GIs being dragged around the
streets of Mogadishu pulled it out again. And whatever their electorates may
say, governments give precedence to power politics over human rights, where the
two clash, as in Chechnya. The humanitarian foreign policy which Bill Clinton
and Tony Blair briefly generalised out of the experience of Kosovo has quickly
hit its limits in Chechnya, where they have not dared challenge Russian
brutality.

Shawcross points out that intervention can sometimes have perverse effects. Food
aid and fuel can fall into the hands of warlords and thus prolong wars. The UN
can try to defend civilians and refugees in "safe areas", but this inevitably
jeopardises its efforts to stay impartial. And where such safe-area promises are
made, they must be kept, as they were not in the Srebrenica tragedy. Bosnia, the
subject of no fewer than 150 Security Council resolutions and statements during
its four- year war, was the classic case of no-peace-to-keep.

Shawcross quotes Henry Kissinger, inveighing against the idea that humanitarian
necessity could or should override state sovereignty. "Once the doctrine of
universal intervention spreads and competing truths contest, we risk enter ing a
world in which, in G.K. Chesteron's phrase, virtue runs amok," warned the great
US exponent of realpolitik. In the end, intervention in armed conflicts comes
down to morality or gut sentiment that "something should be done". Most people
would probably agree that it is better to have intervened inadequately -
although Shawcross shows that this can be counterproductive - than never to have
intervened at all.

One of Kofi Annan's innovations in his three and a bit years as
secretary-general has been to order independent inquests into the UN's failures
to prevent the awful tragedy of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and the 1994
genocide in Rwanda, even at the risk of his own reputation, for Annan himself
directed peacekeeping operations in this period. This readiness to admit
failings has, of course, enhanced Annan's moral authority. Shawcross, who has
clocked up many air miles as part of the secretary-general's caravan around the
world, is clearly an Annan fan. Even so, he has to admit that it is hard to say
whether the ever-diplomatic Annan has chalked up more outright successes than
his prickly predecessor, Boutros Boutros Ghali, either in bringing peace to the
world or in achieving reform of the UN itself.

In getting President Gaddafi of Libya to agree to hand over the Lockerbie
bombing suspects for trial, it appears it was Annan's use of Nelson Mandela to
persuade the Libyan leader that clinched the deal. "Mandela's word is stronger
than a Security Council resolution," Gaddafi told the secretary-general. On more
than one occasion Annan staved off US bombing of that country. But, like anyone
else in his position, he has been stymied by divisions in the Security Council
and Saddam's intransigence.

However, if Kofi Annan wants a second term as secretary-general, one would have
to conclude from this book that he deserves it. And if so, it could be worth
another book from Shawcross, one that advances more discussion of failed states.
After all the rushing about with the world's ambulance service, it would be
valuable to know more about why the victims fall sick in the first place. Order
this book at Pounds 16 (free p&p in the UK) from FT Bookshop on +44-(0)20-8324
5511/www.ftbookshop.com

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April 5, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

OBSERVER: Whipped up OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 173 words

Whipped up

Here's a curious tale concerning Libyan leader Colonel Muammer Gadaffi and his
night on the town in London.

He's in Cairo this week for the first ever Europe-Africa summit, where he's been
threatening to use his platform to demand that European leaders should apologise
for the Crusades.

But it wasn't so much his attack on European colonialism that raised eyebrows
during a speech so long it pushed 10 other leaders off the programme. It was
when he got stuck into European wastefulness and their disinclination to help
neighbours in trouble that things livened up.

Warming to the theme of

African friendliness and European frigidity, he recalled a visit to London as a
student, when he came across two "ladies in distress" at Piccadilly Circus. But
when he offered help, they recoiled and the law stepped in.

At that point, his dissertation changed course and he castigated Europeans for
using eggs in hair shampoo. In socialist countries, he proclaimed, people ate
eggs. Maybe it's the way he tells them.

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April 5, 2000, Wednesday USA Edition 1

OBSERVER: Hard boiled OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 188 words

Hard boiled

There is only one star at this week's first ever Europe-Africa summit - and it's
that old trouper, Colonel Muammer Gadaffi.

Libya's one-man revolution amazed his audience by discussing the evils of
colonialism, neocolonialism and the over-use of eggs in a speech so long it
pushed 10 other leaders off the programme.

European Commission boss Romano Prodi, who thought his own tete-a -tete with
Gadaffi had rather helped improve relations, made it known he was "disappointed"
by the colonel's 50-minute harangue.

But others seemed to enjoy Gadaffi's insights into the European psyche.

Europeans, he revealed, use eggs in their shampoo. Typically, he complained,
socialists eat their eggs, while capitalist countries have nothing better to do
than wash their hair in them.

He also pointed out what he said was the contrast between African warmth and
European coolness. Once, on a trip to London as a student, he came across two
"ladies in distress" at Piccadilly Circus. But when he offered help, they
recoiled and a nearby policeman approached to question him. No word on whether
eggs were involved.

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Financial Times (London,England)

April 4, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Plight of Africa 'is Europe's problem', says Prodi

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN and MARK HUBAND

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 477 words

DATELINE: CAIRO

The plight of Africa is essentially Europe's problem, not that of the US or
other powers, because of past links and proximity, Romano Prodi, the president
of the European Commission, said yesterday.

Speaking at the start in Cairo of the first Europe-Africa summit, Mr Prodi said
that despite diverging trends between the two continents in recent years,
EU-African co-operation had "deep roots, and we should return to them." Europe's
overall political message to the summit, attended by most of Africa's leaders
and those of all EU states except Tony Blair of Britain and Costas Simitis of
Greece, who faces elections next week, was that Europe cares about Africa,
though evidently not enough to come up with commitments of new resources.

"We would like to contribute to changing the predominantly pessimistic image of
Africa," Antonio Guitterres, the prime minister of Portugal, said. Portugal
holds the EU presidency.

Evidence of a determination to resolve the most thorny issues was seen when Mr
Prodi held extensive discussions with Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, on the
summit sidelines. The talks were the highest-level contact between the European
Commission and Libya since the suspension of UN sanctions imposed following
accusations of Libyan involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing.

Efforts to improve political relations also dominated the opening speech of
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the summit host. He said the aim of Africans
leaders was "not to secure more aid but rather to develop mutual partnership and
co-operation programmes."

Although issues of debt relief and trade concessions have been negotiated
elsewhere, the Cairo "Plan of Action", to be published today, hails the pledge
of Euros 1bn (Pounds 600m) from the EU's aid fund for debt relief and the EU's
commitment to remove all tariffs and quotas on imports from Africa's least
developed countries by 2005. But the Cairo plan also notes "the serious
challenge" posed by globalisation to Africa, whose share of the EU market has
shrunk from 6.7 per cent to 3.0 per cent in the past quarter century. The plan
pledges "resources for enlarging the capacity of African countries" to exploit
future free trade with Europe and to participate in World Trade Organisation
negotiations.

"The old emphasis on trade concessions hasn't worked," said Pascal Lamy, the EU
trade commissioner. "We need to seize on this question of Africa's capacity to
meet new challenges of logistics, food standards and so on." Mr Lamy admitted
that more trade with Africa would require adjustment, chiefly by the EU's
Mediterranean states, which because of geography and climate grow many products
in competition with Africa.

With half the world's armed conflicts now taking place in Africa, the
continent's leaders will today discuss ways of reducing the number of wars.

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 30, 2000, Thursday London Edition 2

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Son's 'succession' has no relevance to Gadaffi

BYLINE: By ISA B EDAEKI

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 189 words

From Isa B. Edaeki.

Sir, Roula Khalaf's story "Syria's hopes for reform rest on dynastic succession"
(March 17) pointed out that "Muammer Gadaffi of Libya has his heart set on one
of his sons to succeed him".

Since the al Fateh Revolution in September 1969, Colonel Gadaffi made it clear
to the whole world that the main aim of the al Fateh Revolution is to liberate
Libya and Libyans from colonial hegemony, as well as a corrupt monarchical
regime.

Basic People's Congresses, where ordinary people freely and publicly meet to
discuss their affairs and take decisions, and the people's committees that
implement policies constitute the nucleus of this new political system.

The word "succession" has no place in our political dictionary. The idea of
Colonel Gadaffi's sons succeeding him is neither conceivable nor applicable to a
revolutionary such as Colonel Gadaffi, who dedicated himself to the cause of
revolution and the liberation of people worldwide from all forms of political
abuses and economic exploitation.

Isa B. Edaeki, Charge d'Affaires, Libyan People's Bureau, 61-62 Ennismore
Gardens, London SW7 1NH

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March 27, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: US tries to rescue Israel-Syria talks MIDDLE EAST PEACE CLINTON
MEETS ASSAD BUT OFFICIALS CAUTIOUS ON PROSPECTS OF REVIVING NEGOTIATIONS:

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 664 words

DATELINE: GENEVA

President Bill Clinton and Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad yesterday held a crucial
meeting in Geneva in an effort to restart Israeli-Syrian peace talks.

Mr Assad's decision to make a rare trip outside Syria raised hopes that he is
ready to make concessions that would lead to progress in the peace talks. But
before the meeting, some Clinton administration officials played down its
chances of success. Sandy Berger, the White House national security adviser,
said the meeting's purpose was not to try to reach an agreement between Israel
and Syria. It was to see whether "they can enter into a negotiation that has a
reasonable prospect of being decisive".

"The differences here are not extraordinarily wide, but they're very deep . . .
Itis not clear to me that their two conceptions are reconcilable," he said. A US
official said there was "an opportunity over the next month or so to resume
negotiations if both parties want to."

Since a breakdown of talks in January, Syrian officials have maintained they
would not resume negotiations until Israel pledged a complete withdrawal from
the Golan Heights, occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Officials said Mr Assad
was looking for the US president to convey this pledge to him.

Although Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, appears ready for a substantial
withdrawal from the Golan, he has been loath formally to concede this before his
own requirements for security, normalisation and water sharing are met. Mr Barak
yesterday insisted that Israel must maintain control over the waters of Lake
Tiberias. The withdrawal sought by Mr Assad would put Syria on the northern
shore of the lake.

Mr Barak also stressed that security arrangements must include an early warning
station on the Golan. Damascus sees an Israeli-manned station as an infringement
of its sovereignty, but it appears willing to allow a station to be monitored by
third parties.

The Israeli prime minister yesterday played down expectations of an imminent
breakthrough with Syria and gave Mr Clinton a 50 per cent chance of rescuing the
talks. But Israeli officials said Mr Barak was more than anxious for a
breakthrough. A resumption of talks with Syria could ensure that Israel faces
minimum risks in withdrawing from southern Lebanon, which Mr Barak pledged to
carry out in July. Syria is the power broker in Lebanon.

US Officials said four main issues would be covered at the meeting: the nature
of Israel's withdrawal from the Golan; how Israel would ensure its security
after that; the nature and the progression of the peace and measures to build
confidence between the two sides.

A senior US official said it was important for Damascus to convey to the people
of Israel that if they gave up some or all of the Golan Heights, "that they will
gain from that a qualitatively different relationship with Syria". Diplomats
said Mr Clinton would press Mr Assad to agree to a three-way summit with Mr
Barak to help the Israeli prime minister build support for a peace deal at home.
Mr Barak has pledged an agreement with Syria would be put to a referendum. US
consultations with Israel are expected to follow the meeting. Madeleine
Albright, US secretary of state, said she was ready to head to Israel if it
proved necessary.

* US and Libyan officials yesterday held their first official meeting in Tripoli
since Washington severed ties in 1981, the official Libyan news agency JANA
reported. Before the visit, Tripoli said it hoped the visit would help normalise
ties. Washington said its the main goal was to help decide whether to lift a ban
on US citizens travelling to Libya. JANA said that four US officials discussed
"a number of issues of common interest" with Libyan foreign ministry officials.

Diplomatic ties were severed in 1981 after the US embassy in Libya was burnt
down by students in 1979. Additional reporting by Roula Khalaf in London, Judy
Dempsey in Jerusalem, Gwen Robinson in Washington and Reuters in Tunis.

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 25, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE: Opec near consensus on oil output

BYLINE: By PAUL SOLMAN

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 337 words

Oil markets were unsettled ahead of Monday's long-awaited meeting of the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna.

As the US stepped up diplomatic activity aimed at persuading the cartel to back
an increase in production, Opec officials said members were nearing a consensus.

However, reports of a rise in US oil inventories prompted renewed calls for
caution, with Iran again questioning the wisdom of easing the production
restrictions that have boosted crude prices.

Saudi Arabia has led the drive to lift output, suggesting oil producers should
be prepared to supply an extra 1.5m barrels a day. Outside Opec, Mexico also
said it would pump more oil.

Inside the cartel, opposition has come from Iran, Algeria and Libya, though
analysts say the market expects Saudi Arabia and its supporters to prevail, and
prices have begun to reflect an output rise.

Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether an extra 1.5m barrels a day would be
enough to stabilise the market, and some analysts believe more is needed to
rebuild inventories, which have fallen to historic lows.

In late trading yesterday, May Brent blend in London was Dollars 26.07 a barrel,
a gain of 59 cents on the day, while May light crude in New York was up 65 cents
at Dollars 27.96.

The Bank of England held the fifth gold auction under its plan to dispose of 415
tonnes or nearly 60 per cent of its bullion stocks. Analysts described as
"disappointing" the sale price of Dollars 285.25 an ounce, and spot prices fell,
slipping again later in the week on fund selling.

Gold fixed in London yesterday afternoon at Dollars 284.85 an ounce against last
week's figure of Dollars 285.50.

Coffee futures drifted as the Association of Coffee Producing Countries
confirmed it would meet next month to consider action to support the market.

The ACPC, which represents many of the world's leading producers, is expected to
consider proposals to withhold exports. The move would require the support of
Vietnam, a non-member.

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March 20, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Clinton set to focus on business in Bangladesh

BYLINE: By STEPHEN FIDLER

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 337 words

DATELINE: NEW DELHI

Bill Clinton today becomes the first US president to visit Bangladesh in a trip
expected to highlight possible business opportunities for US companies.

US investment in Bangladesh has risen sharply over the last four years from
about Dollars 25m to Dollars 750m, with most capital going into the natural gas
and private power sectors and led by companies such as Unocal, El Paso/Ogden,
Halliburton and AES. Other US companies, including Chevron and Texaco, are also
said to be ready to invest if a market can be found for the country's natural
gas.

Bangladesh has proven reserves of 10,200bn cubic feet but some energy companies
believe reserves could be as large as 40,000bn cubic feet, comparable with
Libya's or Norway's.

India would be a natural customer for this gas but there is widespread political
opposition in Bangladesh to economic dependence on its larger neighbour.

The US development assistance agency, AID, will launch a Dollars 50m initiative
aimed at helping Bangladesh build cross-border links between private-sector
energy companies.

The US is also Bangladesh's main trading partner due largely to exports of
ready-made garments, which have increased sharply since 1995 when the Uruguay
Round's agreement on textiles and clothing went into effect. Textiles account
for 90 per cent of Bangladeshi exports to the US, which totalled Dollars 1.9bn
last year.

Bangladesh has been pressing for an end of quotas on its textile exports to the
US by 2005 but Washington has said that no discussion can take place until
Bangladesh allows the right of collective bargaining in its export-processing
zones.

Seattle-based Stevedoring Services of America is also negotiating with the
government over a Dollars 438m project to build a container terminal.

Mr Clinton arrived last night in New Delhi, to which he will return from Dhaka
tonight before starting his official visit to India tomorrow. His 11-hour visit
to Bangladesh will also highlight initiatives on tropical forest conservation.

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 17, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Syria's hopes for reform rest on dynastic succession

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 713 words

You do not have be a king in the Arab world to pass power on to your son.

Muammer Gadaffi of Libya has his heart set on one of his two sons to succeed
him. So does the Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein. Even Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has
sounded out his son Gamal as a presidential hopeful.

But by far the most credible and impressive presidential grooming is taking
place in Syria, where an ailing President Hafez al Assad has been carefully
laying the grounds for 34-year-old Bashar to take over.

An army colonel and eye surgeon, Bashar holds no official position. He is simply
the head of the computer society. Yet his powers are enormous. Any hint of
modernity in Syria today is immediately credited to him. By all accounts, he is
responsible for the acceleration of computerisation in schools and the
introduction this year of the internet and mobile telephones.

His image as a champion of progress appears to have no limit. Artists who want
to express themselves, critics of the administration's corruption and proponents
of economic restructuring now flock to him for protection. More often than not,
Dr Bashar, as he is known, obliges.

"Everyone seems to think Bashar is the answer to everything," says a diplomat.

The president's son is widely seen as the man who will lead Syria in an era of
peace with Israel. Arab officials say the need for a smooth transition is
contributing to Syria's drive for a peace settlement.

Described as pleasant and open-minded, Bashar is said to share his father's
attachment to Arab nationalist ideals but to be conscious of the urgent need to
move Syria into the 21st century.

In a country where confidence between society and the state has eroded,
positioning himself as a mediator between the people and the government has
worked to his advantage. Bashar has been slowly gaining support among Syria's
elite and its reformers and, without being directly associated with any
decision, he has cleverly avoided blame for mistakes.

But the image-building exercise is just one part of the Bashar grooming
strategy. Equally important have been his father's efforts to set the stage for
the succession in the military and intelligence apparatus that is the pillar of
the regime.

Mr Assad, who comes from the Muslim Alawi minority, has been treading
cautiously, conscious that the old guard in the regime are not all thrilled with
their pan-Arab nationalist movement taking on dynastic proportions. In
little-publicised moves over the past five years, however, Mr Assad has been
sending into retirement the ageing heads of security and intelligence agencies
and replacing them with a younger generation who feel they owe their jobs to
Bashar. In the past week, Mr Assad finally sacked his prime minister of 13
years. A cabinet formed earlier this week includes candidates recommended by
Bashar.

"The aim is to make change happen without creating any sort of crisis," says an
analyst. "It is all done without much fuss."

There appears nonetheless to be some resistance to a Bashar presidency from
within the Alawi sect and other pockets in the regime. The main complaint, it
seems, is that young Bashar may be "too nice" a leader and thus unable to hold
the various security and intelligence factions together.

The idea of a dynastic succession is clearly controversial among ordinary
Syrians too. While they have appreciated the stability brought by the Assad
regime in the past three decades, after years of successive coups, many have
suffered from an often brutal state repression. Today they are hungry for
democracy and a chance to pick those who govern them.

Diplomats say the longer Mr Assad has to prepare the ground for his son within
the regime, the better Bashar's chances of succession will be.

Reaching a settlement with Israel that returns to Syria the Golan Heights,
occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, and puts behind the conflict that has
obsessed the country for 50 years would also contribute to a smooth succession.
So would eventually giving Bashar an official role in which he might prove to
Syrians that his image is well deserved.

What is clear today, however, is that, for the future Bashar is the only game in
town. Under his posters in Damascus, he is described as "the hope".

LOAD-DATE: March 16, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 11, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE: Oil prices reflect sector uncertainty

BYLINE: By PAUL SOLMAN

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 342 words

World oil prices fluctuated wildly amid conflicting signals about whether
leading producers would act to alleviate the supply squeeze.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meets on March 27 to discuss
the situation and, although most members and leading non-members such as Mexico
and Norway are thought to back a rise in output, there were signs of growing
divisions within the organisation.

Iran, Algeria and Libya declared they were satisfied with current prices, but
Iran later softened its stance after talks with Saudi Arabia, which backs a plan
to pump more oil.

The US, which has repeatedly complained about high prices and called for an
increase in production, also held talks with leading producers.

Against this background, crude prices hit their highest since the Gulf war and
almost three times their level seen just over a year ago. London-traded Brent
blend jumped close to Dollars 32 a barrel during the week, adding more than
Dollars 2 in one session, while New York light crude made similar gains to more
than Dollars 34.

The market then went sharply into reverse on signs that diplomatic wrangling was
bearing fruit, and a report showing a surprise increase in US crude stocks.

In late trading yesterday, benchmark April Brent was Dollars 29.10, while April
crude in New York at midday was Dollars 31.55.

Prices are likely to remain volatile until the Opec meeting, analysts said.

Base metals were led by nickel, which continues to draw support from strong
demand in the stainless steel sector and falling inventories. The three-month
contract on the London Metal Exchange pushed above Dollars 10,100 a tonne to a
five-year high, also assisted by an industrial dispute at Eramet's operations on
the South Pacific island of New Caledonia, which has cut the company's
shipments.

Coffee was stronger than of late, though analysts said the fundamentals remained
poor for prices. May robusta in London ended the week at Dollars 1,012 a tonne,
while May arabica in New York was 107.40 cents a pound.

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March 11, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT: Waving and drowning Mozambicans are no strangers to
flooding, but not on the biblical scale of the most recent inundation. Worse
still, writes Victor Mallet, the main causes lie beyond their borders

BYLINE: By VICTOR MALLET

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1693 words

It was six o'clock on a Saturday evening when curiosity got the better of Paul
Tyndale-Biscoe, a young Australian working for Oxfam in Mozambique.

The town of Chokwe, north of the capital Maputo, was buzzing with rumours about
a great flood wave surging down the Limpopo river from the high ground far away
to the west. Tyndale-Biscoe placed a stone at the edge of the river to gauge how
fast the water was rising. He returned at 11 o'clock to find the Limpopo a
couple of inches higher. "It's a huge flood-plain, so we didn't think it would
be a problem," he said this week at a camp for 45,000 flood victims in nearby
Chaquelane, where he was helping to accommodate the refugees.

Satisfied by his riverside measurements, he went to sleep in his hotel room.
About 1.30 in the morning I was woken by a commotion outside," he said. "And I
could see this sheet of water just moving up the road towards me."

Within minutes, the hotel was knee-deep in muddy water. He and his colleagues
took to their vehicle and fled along the raised road out of Chokwe as the town
was submerged. "If we'd waited another 20 minutes, we wouldn't have got out."

On the night of February 26 and the early morning of the next day, the flood
wave ran the length of the Limpopo in Mozambique, sweeping away villages and
fields, drowning cows and submerging much of the town of XaiXai near the river
mouth on the Indian Ocean. A similar flood rolled down the Save river in the
centre of the country. The thousands of Mozambicans who clambered up trees and
on to rooftops had to stay there for up to a week, often without food or clean
water and plagued by snakes equally anxious to escape the floods.

Agostinho Lumbela, a 34-year-old gold miner, described how his cousin drowned as
he attempted to build a makeshift scaffold to climb into a tree. Lumbela was one
of the more than 12,000 people saved by South African helicopters in a rescue
operation that captured the imagination of television viewers around the world
and prompted an unusually generous outpouring of emergency aid for one of
Africa's poorest countries.

Flooding is a regular event in the Mozambican lowlands, and many of this year's
victims have lost their mud-and-thatch homes more than once in previous
inundations. But this flood was exceptionally high and exceptionally sudden. The
resulting expanses of water, dotted with occasional islands of high ground, were
an awesome sight for the helicopter pilots who raced against time to rescue the
stranded villagers.

"What we did not forecast was the magnitude of the problem," a chastened
Leonardo Simao, the country's foreign minister, told international donors at a
meeting this week. "What is happening today is not comparable to what has
happened before in this country."

The 1999-2000 rainy season has been particularly wet across southern Africa, and
in the first half of February there was heavy flooding around the capital,
Maputo, and along the nearby Incomati river.

There was nothing unusual in seeking the help the South African military
helicopters. They had rendered assistance during floods further north in several
previous seasons. Last year, the country's main north-south road was impassable
for more than a month.

This year, however, there was an additional problem. Just as the Incomati
floodwaters began to recede, Cyclone Eline tore across central Mozambique from
the Indian Ocean and started to dump its rain on the high veld of Zimbabwe,
South Africa and Botswana, 5,000ft above sea-level.

Down in Maputo, the weekend of February 26 and 27 was bright and clear. "The
skies were blue in Mozambique all over the weekend," said Ross Mountain, the UN
secretary-general's humanitarian envoy. "It was a lovely weekend here, but it
wasn't in South Africa, and it wasn't in Zimbabwe."

By late on the Saturday, thousands of cubic metres of water per second were
roaring down the Limpopo towards the unsuspecting Mozambicans. Gauges to measure
the height of the river disappeared under the torrent. Water levels easily
exceeded the previous records of 1977, and the flood of 2000 was by far the
worst since records began in 1948.

Searching for the cause of the catastrophe, some environmentalists blame
greenhouse gases, global warming and climate change, although seasonal rains and
cyclones have been part of life for Mozambique and its neighbours since time
immemorial.

David Lindley, national coordinator of the Rennies Wetlands Project in South
Africa, thinks the origins of the disaster are much simpler. Nine of
Mozambique's 15 main rivers are international - in other words, they originate
in neighbouring states. These neighbours, Lindley says, are the source of most
of Mozambique's river water, and most of its grief.

"It's the cumulative impact of poor land management," he says. "It's estimated
that over 50 per cent of South Africa's wetlands have been destroyed. That's a
lot. If you don't have wetlands and grasslands your safety valves for the rivers
are destroyed. What is occurring at the bottom of the catchment is often a
result of poor land management in the upper catchment."

By draining marshes to create farmland, a process that has been going on in the
northern half of South Africa for nearly a century, South Africans have
unwittingly eliminated the giant natural sponges that regulate the flow of water
into their rivers. Wetlands absorb surplus water after heavy rains and slowly
release it during the dry season, reducing the severity of both floods and
droughts.

Two other human activities have made matters even worse. One is overgrazing,
which converts grasslands into hard, bare earth; the other is urbanisation,
which covers previously absorbent ground with concrete and tarred roads.

Gauteng, the industrial and urban province that includes Johannesburg, is the
catchment for several big rivers. The agricultural Northern Province and
Mpumalariga in the east, as well as neighbouring Zimbabwe and Botswana, suffer
from overgrazing. After the torrential downpours of a typical high veld
thunderstorm, the rainwater barely sinks into the hard earth. Instead it quickly
collects in streams and rivers and rushes headlong down towards the sea.

Unlike global warming, this is not a controversial theory: in cities and on
over-grazed land, anyone can watch the process in action after a rainstorm, Nor
is the problem unique to southern Africa. From the Charles river in the eastern
US to the Rhine in Europe, floods have been blamed on the elimination of
wetlands and the industrialised world's love affair with concrete.

Floods this year in South Africa and Zimbabwe have already drowned dozens of
villagers, damaged houses and crops and washed away roads and bridges,
disrupting international trade and tourism. Soil erosion is worse than ever. The
fast-moving water strips away South Africa's topsoil at a rate four times higher
than the world average, and 20 times faster than it can be replaced, sending
300m tonnes of eroded earth into the oceans every year. "Topsoil," says Lindley,
"is South Africa's greatest export."

But for southern Mozambique, hundreds of kilometres downstream, the flooding has
been catastrophic. Nearly 1m people have been affected, and 650,000 will need to
be fed by foreign donors for the next three to six months.

The problem was not the volume of water coming down the Limpopo, Save and Buzi
rivers, but the pace at which it was released by the river basins in South
Africa and Zimbabwe.

Governments and individuals outside the region have responded to this particular
natural disaster with generosity. South Africa, Sweden, Britain, Belgium, Libya,
Lesotho and many countries ,besides have sent tents, grain, clothes, medicines,
water-purifying equipment and money.

France dispatched two warships. Miami sent fire and rescue workers with
expensive equipment stuffed into enormous backpacks. The US military
contribution includes 700 personnel and aircraft fitted with aerial survey
cameras. Britain offered air force helicopters and lifeboats whose crews have
suffered in the tropical heat.

Fifty foreign helicopters and 100 boats are now taking part in the relief
effort. Some donors even sent life-rafts and the inner tubes of tyres, both of
which were of limited value as the disaster changed in character when the
floodwaters subsided and exposed the mud beneath.

Some critics said the aid came late, and some questioned the logic of sending so
many helicopters and so few engineers and road-builders. Last weekend, the
entire fleet of helicopters operating in southern Mozambique only managed to
move 94 tonnes of supplies, or about three truck-loads.

Others mocked the chaotic clamour for attention among the donors. "It's just
become an absolute circus," said one Maputo-based foreign businessman.

A more serious criticism is that nothing is being done to stop a recurrence of
the floods in future years. It is true that the flooding after this cyclone was
particularly severe because the ground all over southern Africa was already
sodden after weeks of heavy rain, and therefore unable to absorb much more.

"It's difficult to plan for a disaster of this magnitude that comes once in 50
or 100 years," Namanga Ngongi, of the World Food Programme, said in Maputo this
week after surveying the mayhem in the Limpopo valley.

But this is not the first time that the rains in this area have been followed by
a cyclone, and it will not be the last. It is, however, probably the first time
that so much rain has fallen on such a degraded environment.

For Africans preoccupied with the immediate problems of poverty and politics,
the corpses being dug out of the mud in Chokwe and Xai Xai serve as a gruesome
warning that they cannot ignore the seemingly dull science of river basin
management.

"These floods are going to continue happening in the future - in the past 10
years there has been a dramatic increase in the severity of floods and the
severity of droughts," says Lindley. "All we need is another cyclone coming
over, and the same thing is going to happen. And it could get worse in the next
10 years."

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 9, 2000, Thursday London Edition 1

COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE: Oil falls back amid Opec tensions

BYLINE: By GILLIAN O'CONNOR and PAUL SOLMAN

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 38

LENGTH: 353 words

World oil prices fell sharply from the highs of recent days as the market
continued to watch diplomatic wrangling ahead of the next meeting of the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries on March 27.

Iran, which yesterday held talks with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, appeared to be
prepared to moderate its tough stance on increasing oil output.

Along with Algeria and Libya, Iran has opposed Opec producers such as Saudi
Arabia and non-members such as Mexico, which support greater production to
alleviate the fear of a supply squeeze that has pushed benchmark prices on both
sides of the Atlantic up to post-Gulf War highs.

Iran argues the fundamentals remain the same and it is speculation that has
driven prices upward.

Yesterday, the weekly report from the American Petroleum Institute showed US
inventories grew by more than 7.5m barrels last week to 292m barrels, surprising
a market that had expected another reduction in stocks.

In late London trading, April Brent was down Dollars 1.10 at Dollars 30.80 a
barrel, having fallen to Dollars 30.45 at one stage. New York light crude was
off 99 cents at Dollars 33.14, having reached a low of Dollars 32.65.

Base metals ended the day slightly lower on the London Metal Exchange. The
setback was attributed to sales by investment funds, and most analysts remain
fairly bullish about the price outlook, particularly for nickel.

Warehouse stocks of nickel fell again yesterday, leaving them at just over
34,000 tonnes, around half their peak level in 1999.

A research note from Macquarie Equities highlighted the importance of cancelled
warehouse warrants in signalling an imminent fall in stocks.

The fact that the cash price has been higher than the forward price recently has
made it profitable for consumers to leave their stocks in LME warehouses. When
they cancel the warehouse warrant it is an indication that they intend to pull
the stocks out.

The palladium price was fixed at Dollars 700 per ounce yesterday afternoon,
Dollars 25 up on the previous fix.

The market is waiting for news of Russian export licences and shipments.

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March 9, 2000, Thursday London Edition 3

WORLD NEWS: Oil output policies test Iran's new ties with Saudi Arabia

BYLINE: By ROBERT CORZINE and ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 621 words

DATELINE: LONDON

Diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the most important
recent strategic development in the Gulf, is being tested as the two sides
intensify efforts to bridge differences over oil production policy.

The Saudi Arabian and Iranian oil ministers held a crucial meeting in Riyadh
yesterday over how the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec)
should deal with sharply rising oil prices, which this week surged to fresh
nine-year highs.

In the first week of March, oil prices have risen by more than 8 per cent,
largely because Iran, Algeria and Libya have indicated their opposition to an
early rise in output by Opec - a policy that is favoured by Saudi Arabia, the
world's big-gest oil producer and exporter.

At the end of yesterday's meeting, Tehran hinted at a possible moderation of its
position, leading to a weakening in oil prices, with the April Brent Futures
Contract down Dollars 1.39 a barrel to Dollars 30.51 in late trading in London.

In a statement, Ali al Naimi, Saudi oil minister, and Bijan Zanganeh, his
Iranian counterpart, agreed that the latest run-up in prices was not in the
interests of either the main petroleum producing countries or the consuming
ones, such as the US.

Washington has been lobbying Saudi Arabia and its other allies on the Arab side
of the Gulf to increase production substantially from April 1.

But the statement was sufficiently ambiguous to suggest that further
consultation will be needed in order to forge a compromise over the timing and
size of any output rise.

Analysts are hoping the thaw in relations between Riyadh and Tehran will help
convince Iran to move closer to Saudi policy. After years of hostilities, driven
by Saudi fears that Iran was seeking to export its Islamic revolution, relations
have significantly improved in recent years.

The victory of reformists in last month's parliamentary elections in Tehran is
expected to accelerate the detente. Saudi Arabia's King Fahd recently invited
Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to the kingdom, in what the Arab world saw
as a historic move.

The Iranian-Saudi rapprochement was critical in convincing Iran last year to
accept deep production cuts that restored credibility to Opec and led to the
rise in prices.

A senior Iranian official said yesterday improved relations would help the
cartel reach consensus on output policy this time around. "Because of the
friendship and confidence between Iran and Saudi Arabia, I'm sure this exchange
of views will contribute to better agreement at Opec," said Morteza Sarmadi,
deputy foreign minister.

Yesterday's meeting in Riyadh, however, highlighted the disparate nature of Opec
as it tries to build a consensus before its next formal meeting on March 27.
Iran, with its weak finances and economy and large population, fears that a
production increase in the second quarter of the year - when global oil demand
is weakest because of the end of the northern winter - could trigger steep price
falls.

Such concerns are less pronounced on the Arab side of the Gulf, where the
smaller countries with relatively low populations have recovered more quickly
from the financially calamitous oil price collapse of 1998.

Iran's dilemma is compounded by its limited capacity to take part in a large
production increase. The Centre for Global Energy Studies in London estimates
that Iran may only have enough spare capacity to push up production by another
300,000 barrels a day or so to around 3.8m b/d.

If prices fell to the Dollars 20-Dollars 23 range that many industry experts
think is more sustainable, Iran would not be able to make up for the lost
revenue with increased volumes, says Leo Drollas of CGES.

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March 8, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 1

STOCK MARKETS LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE: Man Utd shoot higher

BYLINE: By PETER JOHN, JOEL KIBAZO and STEVE THOMPSON

SECTION: STOCK MARKETS LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE; Pg. 52

LENGTH: 1015 words

Manchester United, winners of last year's European Champions League, the English
premiership and FA Cup, surged higher. The shares hit an intraday record of 380p
and closed up 49 or 15 per cent at 376p as the team prepared to take on Bordeaux
in the European Champions League.

That performance saw the company's market value approach Pounds 1bn, making it
easily the most valuable football club in the world.

A victory against Bordeaux is widely seen as virtually guaranteeing United a
place in the extremely lucrative quarter-final stages of the competition.

And although the prospect of a win against the French team was one of the
driving forces behind the surging Manchester United share price, it was
apparently a strong buy recommendation from Warburg Dillon Read, the
stockbroker, that attracted the institutions.

Warburg was said to have put a 500p-a-share target on the shares, pointing to
the attractions of the group's internet site and its overall media content, as
well as the benefits of the recent Vodafone sponsorship, worth Pounds 30m over
four years.

Oil shares rebounded after dated Brent broke decisively through Dollars 30 a
barrel in London trading for the first time since 1991.

Dealers said the US Energy Information Administration predicted a sharp rise in
the price of crude to Dollars 35 a barrel - even if Opec agreed production cuts.

Also, the head of the International Energy Authority warned of a production
shortage. And Warburg Dillon Read revised its Brent and WTI price targets for
the year to Dollars 25 a barrel from Dollars 20.50. Iran, Libya and Algeria have
united against oil production increases. Opec is scheduled to meet on March 27
in Vienna to draft the organisation's future strategy.

Shell Transport rose 18 3/4 to 462 3/4p while BP Amoco gained 12 to 505 1/2p.

Unilever falls

Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever fell sharply in late trading after
its US rival Procter & Gamble stunned the market with a profits-warning which
sent its shares plunging.

In London, Unilever shares tumbled to 336p before rallying to finish 33 1/2 down
at 347 1/4p, after busy trading of 45m shares.

Reckitt Benckiser, some of whose markets overlap with those of Unilever and
Procter surrendered 44 or nearly 9 per cent to 472p.

The prospect of increasing competition for a slice of the UK internet market
cast a shadow over companies that have so far made strong gains from the sector.

US group NTL, which is acquiring part of Cable & Wireless Communications,
confirmed it is to launch a free UK-wide internet service.

The new free internet service, announced a day after AltaVista also of the US
raised the stakes in the battle for UK internet users, will go live on April 17
for PC users and the TV internet service is due to follow shortly afterwards.

Dixons which has an 80 per cent stake in the UK's biggest internet service
provider Freeserve, was the worst affected by the news. It fell 254 or 17.1 per
cent to Pounds 12.34, the worst performer in the Footsie. At the close of
business, it was announced that Dixons shares had been suspended at its own
request to allow it to execute a restructuring plan.

The company said in January that it planned to restructure its operations into
two holding companies, one for its retail operations and the other for
Freeserve, which is joining the FTSE 100. Freeserve shares yesterday slipped 167
1/4 to 712 1/4p.

British Telecommunications was also a casualty, with investors concerned about
competitive pressures to do with the internet and regulatory concerns. gave up
118 to Pounds 11.70.

However, telecoms fever gave a boost to National Grid and BG helping the shares
gain 31 1/2 to 550p and 8 1/2 to 295 1/2p.

HSBC Securities said the winners of the third generation mobile licences would
have to spend Pounds 5bn on infrastructure, much of which would go on link boxes
at the top of masts.

BG, which has many radio masts for internal communications, and Railtrack, which
also provides a strong geographical spread, have been mentioned before and
yesterday HSBC highlighted BG's latent potential with a 350p sum-of-the parts
valuation. Also Warburg Dillon Read reiterated its "buy" recommendation on BG
and set a 420p price target.

But HSBC highlighted National Grid, arguing that with 21,000 pylons throughout
the country the company could be a prime site provider.

Daily Mail headed the outperformers list on the Footsie with a rise of 98 to
Pounds 12.98. One analyst pointed out that if it had not had the odd share split
over the past decade the price, which was Pounds 10.00 at the start of the 1990s
would now be above Pounds 500. The company, which is most famous for its
mid-market newspaper, also has five dotcom sites.

New economy enthusiasm helped Carlton Communications, the television and video
production group, gain 64 1/2 to 900 1/2p. Internet related companies are now
estimated to represent 10 per cent of UK advertising. Lorna Tilbian of West LB
Panmure said: "Seven out of 10 internet groups will fail but 10 out of 10 will
put money into mass media advertising and promotion. It's a win-win situation."

Pearson, the Financial Times owner which on Monday announced strong figures and
a joint venture with AOL of the US, rose 52 to Pounds 25.53. West LB recommended
the shares to Pounds 26.50 and HSBC to Pounds 26.04.

PowerGen, National Power and British Energy fell as a profits-warning from
Entergy of the US followed Monday's caution from Edison International and both
cited poorer prospects for their UK generation assets.

British Energy fell 27 1/2 to 212 3/4p.

PowerGen dropped 62 to 367 3/4p ensuring its departure from the FTSE 100.
National Power fell 26 to 328 1/2p.

Independent Insurance dropped 40 1/2 to 204p with investors unhappy about some
of the detail in the full-year figures.

Williams, the fire protection and security group, was the toast of the market as
investors celebrated the company's move to unlock value by spliting the
business.

Shares jumped 78 or nearly 30 per cent to 339 3/4p.

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March 8, 2000, Wednesday London Edition 2

COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE: Crude shatters Dollars 34 barrier in New York

BYLINE: By ROBERT CORZINE, GILLIAN O'CONNOR and PAUL SOLMAN

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 38

LENGTH: 348 words

Crude oil prices continued to rally strongly yesterday amid fresh signs that the
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is still divided over the wisdom
of increasing output next month.

On London's International Petroleum Exchange, the bellwether April Brent futures
contract hit at a fresh nine-year high of Dollars 31.90 a barrel late in the
afternoon, Dollars 2.27 up on Monday. In New York, the April Nymex contract
passed first through the Dollars 33-a-barrel level and then went through Dollars
34 to register a Dollars 1.95 gain to Dollars 34.13 a barrel.

The latest surge in oil prices came on the eve of a meeting in Riyadh of the
Saudi Arabian and Iranian oil ministers.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, is searching for a way to raise
output that would appease leading consuming countries, such as the US, without
alienating Opec members such as Iran, Algeria and Libya. They remain unconvinced
of the wisdom of raising output at a time of the year when world demand usually
plummets.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency, the multinational organisation that
monitors oil markets on behalf of the industrialised countries, yesterday
repeated its call for an early rise in Opec output.

Three-month nickel prices touched a new high of Dollars 10,380 per tonne on the
London Metal exchange yesterday. Macquarie Equities said: "With stainless steel
production booming, and Inco and Falconbridge's labour negotiations still to
come, there is still a high risk of higher prices yet."

Palladium prices remained relatively steady after confirmation that the Russian
president has signed the decree to allow exports of platinum group metals.

Robusta coffee prices rose in London again yesterday, with the most actively
traded May contract closing at Dollars 1,015 a tonne, a gain of Dollars 24 on
the day.

Vietnam, the world's largest robusta producer, said it expected delays in
shipments because farmers were reluctant to sell coffee at the current low
prices.

Cocoa also rose, with May ending up Pounds 12 at Pounds 644 a tonne.

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March 7, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

STOCK MARKETS LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE: Vodafone rises with weighting

BYLINE: By PETER JOHN and JOEL KIBAZO

SECTION: STOCK MARKETS LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE; Pg. 50

LENGTH: 1012 words

The news that Vodafone AirTouch now controls just under 93 per cent of
Mannesmann triggered a buying spree among investors and helped pull the FTSE 100
ahead as the stock flirted with its all time peak.

Investors eager to get the right weighting in the world's biggest mobile
telecoms company sent the shares sharply ahead and they eventually closed 29 1/2
or 8 per cent ahead at 399p, just below their all time high of 400p. At the
start of trading yesterday, the stock had a weighting of about 14 per cent of
the Footsie and dealers said yesterday's advance had helped underpin the upward
move of the premier index.

FTSE International yesterday used the occasion of increased control of
Mannesmann, the German group which it recently took over after a hostile bid
battle, to increase Vodafone's weighting in the FTSE 100. From today, it will
account for just over 15 per cent of the FTSE 100. Volume was 459m.

Chemicals group BOC was the sharpest faller in the FTSE 100 index, the shares
sliding 160 to Pounds 11.32 on worries that approval for the takeover by Air
Liquide of France and Air Products of the US could be delayed by the US
regulator.

The deal has been approved in the EU but concerns that the Federal Trade
Commission might cut up rough have been on the increase since the deal between
BP Amoco and Arco was quashed a couple of months ago.

Most of the fall appeared to have been inspired by US arbitrageurs. However,
dealers said that at more than 300p below the risk-reward ratio was weighted
towards the upside.

Royal Bank of Scotland moved forward 21 to 882p on unusually heavy turnover of
133m shares as investors decided the takeover of National Westminster was a
certainty and started to adjust their weightings.

Royal Bank of Scotland is included in one of the widely followed MSCI indices
while National Westminster is not. Followers of the index will have to buy
heavily into the enlarged group to keep their holdings in line.

BoS recommended

Meanwhile, Bank of Scotland was added to Lehman Brothers' "European Recommended
List" at the expense of Barclays and Nordbanken which were removed. Bank of
Scotland dipped 19 to 572p, Barclays were 4 higher at Pounds 15.14.

Independent Insurance moved up 17 to 244 1/2p ahead of full year figures today.

Oil stocks failed to move forward despite the price of Brent crude creeping
relentlessly towards Dollars 30 a barrel.

Brent was supported by a rigid stance from Iran, Algeria and Libya who do not
want production limits to be raised and who will be meeting before the next Opec
session at the end of March to discuss their case.

One dealer said it was the old economy, new economy argument. BP Amoco eased to
493 1/2p and Shell Transport dropped 6 3/4 to 444p. Centrica surprised some
analysts with its 10 per cent leap but it seemed that telecoms rather than gas
was behind the outperformance.

Analysts said the pledge to move into telecom in September plus an exceptional
customer base was behind the rise of 23 1/4 to 253 1/4p.

Small oil exploration group United Energy saw its share price rise 5 1/2 to 31p
before trading was suspended. The company said it was in talk about an
acquisition that could lead to a reverse takeover.

Confirmation by Somerfield, the troubled supermarkets group, that it had
received a bid approach only served to increase the feeling that the company's
days as an independent constituent of the London market were drawing to a close.

Listed food retailers Budgens and Iceland Group were among those being tipped as
possible suitors for Somerfield.

The news sent shares in Somerfield soaring and they closed 17 or 27.4 per cent
ahead at 79p, the best performance in the FTSE 250.

Over the weekend, it emerged that Somerfield's chief executive had fallen out
with his board over the future direction of the business. Mr Simons is
understood to want to take the company private with the backing of private
equity firms.

Strong competition from much bigger rivals has only served to compound falling
sales and profits since Somerfield merged with Kwik Save two years ago. "It
looks like the company and shareholders may be about to be put out of its
misery" said one sector specialist.

In the last 12 months, Somerfield has underperformed the FTSE All-Share index by
81 per cent. Last month, the stock fell to a low of 52p.

Pearson jumped 198 to Pounds 25.01 as the company, which owns the Financial
Times, announced strong figures with earnings 15 per cent better than last
year's. The company also announced its intention to list in the US later in the
year and a link-up with America Online in the field of education. Enthusiasm
with the figures washed to other media stocks with BSkyB adding 224 1/2 at
Pounds 21.58 and Carlton Communications 59 1/2 at 836p.

However, Reed International failed to take part in the party because Deutsche
Bank removed it from its "European Focus List" in favour of Vivendi, the French
conglomerate.

NewMedia Spark, the internet investment group, held at 166 1/2p despite the
dilutive impact of funding expansion in Scandinavia through a Pounds 50m share
issue. The company bought Cel ICD, an internet and technology incubator, for
Pounds 84.7m.

Figures from business services group Hays left the market unimpressed and the
shares tumbling. The stock lost 46 or nearly 12 per cent, one of the worst
performances in the FTSE 100, with the disappointing performance in the group's
distribution activities blamed for the decline.

The prospect of stiffer competition for internet service provider Freeserve sent
the shares into retreat. The stock declined 41 1/4 to 879 1/2p, after AltaVista
of the US said it plans to offer access to the internet without telephone
charges, but with membership and annual fees. Freeserve currently offers a
subscription-free service but takes a share of telephone charges.

Countrywide Assured gained 19 1/2 to 167p as it announced an e-commerce joint
venture with the estate agency businesses of Connell, Halifax and Royal & Sun
Alliance Insurance.

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March 4, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Gadaffi returns to 'people power': LIBYA'S REVOLUTION AFTER 30 YEARS
THE YOUNGER GENERATION ARE APOLITICAL, UNEMPLOYED AND UNINTERESTED IN THEIR M:
The quirky Libyan leader has scrapped most ministries in favour of people's
assemblies. Roula Khalaf reports

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 624 words

Muammer Gadaffi has lost none of his taste for revolution.

Just as the world was expecting Libya to become a normal country following the
suspension last year of United Nations sanctions, the mercurial leader this week
threw Tripoli into a spin by scrapping most ministries and devolving their
powers to "people's assemblies".

The only ministries spared were justice, security, foreign affairs, finance and
information. Much of the work of the former oil ministry is now expected to be
taken up by the state oil company.

Libyan officials billed the decision as a "new step in the popular revolution".
Observers, however, said it was designed to tighten Col Gadaffi's grip on power.

Col Gadaffi has established a peculiar and unique system of governance. Since
1977 Libya, known at home as the "state of the masses", has been officially run
by popular committees and congresses.

Each of them sends delegates to the people's congress - a sort of parliament
that approves laws and sets policy guidelines.

In effect, however, real power has always been in the hands of Col Gadaffi, the
"guide of the revolution".

Libyans, however, are losing interest in Col Gadaffi's quirky democracy.
Long-time observers say he has sensed in recent years that the country has been
slipping from his control.

A recent survey found that only 50 per cent of people attended people's
congresses and a mere 10 per cent felt they affected decision-making. Economic
life was also gradually moving out of the official system. It is estimated that
20 per cent of trade, for example, is outside government control.

"Gadaffi feels he's losing control, so he needs to revive direct democracy,"
said a Libya expert. "The younger generation are apolitical, unemployed and
uninterested and they don't understand or care about Gadaffi. And a whole
economic life is taking place outside the struct-ure."

Col Gadaffi's dramatic move was thus designed to rekindle Libyans' interest in
their leader and send the message that the administration, rather than himself,
was responsible the country's problems.

Col Gadaffi has repeatedly blamed UN sanctions, suspended last year after he
handed over two suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, for the economy's woes.
But analysts said economic problems were more the result of the government's
mismanagement and the leader's penchant for squandering billions of dollars on
white elephant projects. The most lavish is the Pounds 12.5bn Great Man Made
River, designed to transport underground water from the southern desert to the
north and help Libya become self-sufficient in agricultural production.

Irrational economic behaviour was underlined in January when Col Gadaffi tore up
the government's budget for 2000, complaining that it relied too heavily on oil
revenues, Libya's main source of foreign exchange. The budget was rewritten and
projected oil receipts were reduced from 40 per cent of the total to 20 per
cent.

The question this raised, however, was what Col Gadaffi would do with the rest
of the oil revenues, which will be off-budget. Some analysts speculate he might
be planning to spend them on promoting peace in Africa - his latest pet project.
While abolishing most ministries this week, he created one new one, dedicated to
African unity.

Col Gadaffi appears to have other plans too. A day after dissolving the
ministries, he proposed that Libya should have a head of state, for the first
time since his 1969 revolution.

Analysts predicted the move was part of the leader's plans to prepare the ground
for one of his sons to take over from him. The prominence of his two sons,
especially Seif al-Islam, the older, has raised speculation that he is being
groomed for succession.

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 3, 2000, Friday London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Europe's 'social worker' answers back: Criticism of his
European Commission presidency is to be expected at a time of rapid change, a
combative Romano:

BYLINE: By PETER NORMAN

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 1020 words

After a widely acclaimed start in his job, Romano Prodi has in recent months
been just as widely criticised. The president of the European Commission has
found himself at the centre of controversy, for example over the invitation at
Christmas to Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, to visit Brussels. And more
generally, there have been complaints that he has failed to spell out his
objectives clearly. "What does he stand for?" is a question often heard on the
Brussels diplomatic circuit.

It is a question Mr Prodi does not appreciate. Departing from his quiet,
professorial manner, he becomes quite heated in his own defence. "You can blame
me only because I have been very, very honest about my plans," he says. "In a
year's time you will start to understand."

The Commission president has to deal with "an enormous number of goals", he
points out. He is involved in a far-reaching reform of the Commission itself.
And he is pursuing reforms ranging from food safety and the environment to
completing the single market and making Europe's single currency secure from
shocks in the euro-zone economy.

He is unrepentant about his invitation to Mr Gadaffi, even though the visit was
postponed indefinitely after a flurry of diplomatic exchanges between Brussels
and the member states' capitals. "That was the start of a dialogue that will go
on." In his view, it is essential for Europe to see how it can work with Libya,
given its proximity across the Mediterranean Sea and its fast-growing
population.

Mr Prodi, 60, is no stranger to criticism. He recalls his time as Italian prime
minister. "People made fun of me when I announced I wanted to join the European
currency, and proposed a European tax that would be paid back. Nobody laughed
when I achieved all that," he says, in an interview with the Financial Times and
Financial Times Deutschland.

But, aware of rumours that he is keen to return to Italian politics, he is quick
to add: "I have left Italy behind. I have no intention of going back."

He brushes aside suggestions that he is not fully engaged in the Commission's
internal reforms. "I cannot be committed to working 100 per cent in 10 different
directions. But these are the Prodi Commission reforms. I am directly and
heavily committed to putting them into practice." His commitment is not
risk-free. "I cannot be at all sure that they will succeed," he admits. But "you
cannot swim and keep your feet dry".

He dismisses the complaints about his running of the Commission as generally
anonymous and from people with an axe to grind - adding combatively: "You will
collect more and more in the future. I hope you will collect hundreds of them."

Looking beyond the Commission itself, Mr Prodi appears not to feel under
pressure from the member states. He has just finished a telephone conversation
with Lionel Jospin, the French prime minister, in which they discussed their
recent visits to Israel. "The exchange of views is more and more routine, an
exchange of views that goes beyond strict agenda points," he says.

Mr Prodi defends the decision of Austria's 14 European Union partners to isolate
Vienna politically after the creation in January of a coalition government
incorporating the far right Freedom Party.

The imposition of bilateral political sanctions, while leaving the Commission to
continue the EU's working relations with Austria, "was correct for both the
member states and Commission".

Austria "made everybody think about the principles on which Europe is based. It
was also a perfect demonstration of the type of problem which could come up very
often in the future."

After the EU's planned enlargement to include the former Communist countries of
eastern and central Europe, the union will have 28 members and elections in one
country or another almost every month. What would happen if the EU had not made
its principles clear, he asks.

The dispute with Austria showed more needed to be done. It was important for the
EU to draw up the charter of fundamental rights that is being negotiated by a
panel of constitutional experts in parallel to this year's Intergovernmental
Conference on reform of the EU institutions.

The mere possibility that Austria, or some other government with a far right
participation, could block EU business was also a pressing reason for the IGC to
move on from the principle of unanimity in EU decision- making and adopt more
qualified majority voting.

The EU must also make more use of subsidiarity - the idea that decisions should
be taken as closely to the citizens as possible rather than being centralised in
Brussels.

"This is why I am so keen on the idea of governance," Mr Prodi says. He has
promised a Commission white paper on the issue in the spring of next year.

"By governance I mean the idea of applying subsidiarity in a practical way. That
means keeping at the European level the decisions that are necessary for our
role in the global world."

When Mr Prodi was nominated to the post of president 10 months ago, he said he
wanted to develop "a common European soul". Five and a half months later, he
characterises his job somewhat differently.

"I am a social worker," he jokes - someone who has to make compatible the
different interests of the member states, the European Parliament and
Commission.

However, that does not mean he has lowered his ambitions. "This is the most
fantastic challenge you can have. It is important to understand this is period
of historical change," he says.

"We must grasp the challenge of history. We cannot go on being contradictory,
tolerating, for example, a situation where Europe spends two-thirds of the US
defence budget and has perhaps 10 per cent of US defence capacity.

"We must participate in the advance of creativity, science, innovation. We must
be democratic, in a union that keeps its different states, languages and
habits."

But clearly more criticism is expected. "If you don't take risks, you don't
change anything inside or outside the Commission. And if you don't clash, in a
polite and clear manner, you don't change anything."

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Financial Times (London,England)

March 2, 2000, Thursday London Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK: Lasmo reveals possibility of going private

BYLINE: By ANNA MINTON

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 379 words

Lasmo, the oil exploration and production company, has confirmed that venture
capital groups are investigating the possibility of taking it private.

Paul Murray, finance director, said: "There are a number of private venture
capital groups looking at the company."

He added: "It's an obvious situation - when you've got oil prices and share
prices where they are - that there's value to be extracted."

However, Mr Murray said Lasmo had not initiated talks and was not aware of the
details of any possible offers.

Analysts said that taking Lasmo private made good sense. As late as 1997 the
company was one of the top performers in the FTSE 100. But since then its
shares, in common with the rest of the sector, have suffered falling from a 1998
peak of almost 300p to close at 99p yesterday, up 4 1/4p on the back of
speculation about talks.

The group reported an upswing in 1999 pre-tax profits to Pounds 211m against a
loss of Pounds 359m last time, buoyed by the turnround in the oil price and
merger with Monument Oil & Gas. Profit before exceptionals was Pounds 113m
(Pounds 44m loss). Turnover rose to Pounds 647m (Pounds 536m).

The group also announced it would be seeking to launch a share buy-back worth
Pounds 41m, the amount raised in the year from the sale of assets. The buy-back
was seen by analysts as another move to raise flagging investor interest in the
stock.

The single dividend is 2.5p (2.3p), payable from earnings per share of 10.8p
(losses of 43.7p).

Comment

* Lasmo is renowned for concentrating on the world's political hot spots with
exploration currently under way in Indonesia, Pakistan, Libya, Kuwait, Iran and
Venezuela. Of all these it is Venezuela and the controversial Dacion development
there which is doing little to help the flagging shares. Dacion apart, however,
Lasmo is making every conceivable effort to buoy the shares, initiating a share
buy-back for the first time in its history. The growing speculation that the
company will be taken out of the market by a private-equity backed team will
surely send the stock up further as well. Analysts forecast net income at Pounds
190m which puts the stock on a prospective multiple of 6.7. It might sound low
but that, at the moment, appears to be Lasmo's lot.

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 15, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

COMPANIES & FINANCE: THE AMERICAS: The importance of being big and nimble
INTERVIEW: LEE RAYMOND, EXXON MOBIL CHIEF:

BYLINE: By ROBERT CORZINE and HILLARY DURGIN

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 36

LENGTH: 799 words

Exxon Mobil, which gal-vanised the world's oil industry with the largest merger
in the sector, is committed to maintain its leadership position despite stepped
up competition and flagging investor confidence in the sector.

Royal Dutch/Shell, the Anglo-Dutch group, and BP Amoco - the other two members
of the oil industry's new "super league" - are aggressively embracing hallmarks
of the Exxon Mobil business model - scale and efficiency - and both recently
announced their intent to pursue share buy-back programmes, a strategy Exxon
Mobil has successfully employed to boost shareholder return during the past two
decades.

The competition to woo investors, however, has become all the more intense given
that the shares of the integrated oil companies have underperformed the main
market indices despite a tripling in the price of oil over the past year.

Lee Raymond, Exxon Mobil chairman and chief executive, is unmoved by competitors
snapping at his heels: "The differentiation will be in the execution," he says.
Ultimately, the company that developed the model is going to excel by deploying
it, he contends. And Exxon Mobil, he claims, is well positioned to do just that.

Exxon Mobil's success at share buy-backs, a programme he says that will remain
an important tool to maintain financial flexibility, is a case in point.

Exxon Mobil has used occasional buy-backs as a way to give shareholders optimum
value; the notion that a company's cash flow can exactly meet the returns on its
investment is naive, Mr Raymond says.

Although all three oil majors intend to launch buy-backs, Mr Raymond says
different approaches to the issue could prove critical. He questions the wisdom
of committing a capital-intensive company operating in a volatile business
environment to a multi-year programme, as Shell last week indicated it would do.

By contrast Exxon Mobil never announces how large its buy-backs will be or over
what period they will take place.

Its buy-backs during the 1980s and 1990s helped its shares to outperform market
indices and those of its peers. Following a programme launched in 1997, Exxon's
shares rose by 53 per cent, compared with its peer group, which recorded an
average of 27 per cent, according to Salomon Smith Barney in New York.

Exxon Mobil is precluded by pooling of interest restrictions from repurchasing
shares for a six-month period, which will end in June. Analysts have estimated
it could purchase Dollars 27bn-Dollars 35bn worth of shares, or 10-12 per cent
of the total shares outstanding.

While Mr Raymond acknowledges he is worried about the company's flagging share
price in the face of investor enthusiasm for the technology sector and internet
issues, he believes in the fundamental appeal of the energy industry.

The industry is going to grow, he says, and there really is not a viable
alternative to oil and gas. It becomes harder to replace, he maintains, because
it has only becomes cheaper on an inflation-adjusted basis. In forging the Exxon
Mobil merger, Mr Raymond has always argued that the combined company would be
better positioned to compete alongside or to partner state oil companies.

His company, he argues, has an inherent advantage should large reserve holders,
such as Saudi Arabia decide to open its oil sector to outside investors, as
Exxon was historically the dominant foreign influence in Saudi Aramco, the now
state-owned national oil group.

But, he warns that the importance of technology should not be discounted in
evaluating the importance of new frontiers outside of the Organisation of
Petroleum Exporting Countries.

But Mr Raymond acknowledged that Exxon Mobil faces a disadvantage because of the
US government's policy of imposing unilateral sanctions on several oil-rich
countries, such as Iran and Libya.

As galling as it has been for him to see his international rivals flock to do
business with those countries, flouting laws that threaten (but so far do not
enforce) penalties against them for doing so, he has no remedy.

Despite virtual agreement among Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike that
the laws are unenforceable, there is unlikely to be a change in US policy during
a presidential election year, Mr Raymond says.

While the Exxon Mobil merger has made the company the largest public oil
company, prompting challenges by smaller competitors that they have an advantage
in being more nimble, Mr Raymond reckons the key is in how oil companies manage
their operations and wield their clout.

"That works so long as the guys who are big aren't nimble," Mr Raymond retorts.
"Because big and nimble can overwhelm small and nimble", he said, adding that if
the big companies manage themselves correctly, they will put overwhelming
pressure on the competition.

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Financial Times (London,England)

February 14, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: Tories demand investigation NEWS DIGEST:

BYLINE: By ANDREW PARKER

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 135 words

SECURITY SERVICES

Tories demand investigation

The Conservatives yesterday called for an investigation into allegations that
MI6 knew about an assassination attempt on Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader,
in 1996. A report placed on the internet said the Secret Intelligence Service
knew at least two months in advance about the plot to kill Mr Gadaffi. The
Foreign Office, while acknowledging it knew of plots against Mr Gadaffi, denied
Robin Cook, foreign secretary, had misled the public by stating in 1998 that
there was nothing to suggest MI6 had "any interest" in the assassination
attempt. Francis Maude, shadow foreign secretary, said he would be tabling
parliamentary questions to ascertain what Mr Cook knew about "the role of the
British intelligence services in this case". Andrew Parker

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 29, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: Cook calls for UN rules to allow state intervention FOREIGN
POLICY:

BYLINE: By ANDREW PARKER

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 449 words

Robin Cook, foreign secretary, yesterday said the United Nations should adopt
new rules allowing the international community to intervene in sovereign states
to halt "an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe".

In what was billed as his most significant speech since setting out the Foreign
Office's mission statement in 1997, Mr Cook said Britain would seek progress on
drawing up the intervention rules at the UN millennium summit in September.

He also indicated Britain was willing to see an expansion of the UN security
council's permanent members from five to 10 to take in countries from Africa,
Asia and Latin America.

The Conservatives accused Mr Cook of dumping the 1997 mission statement's
commitment to bring an "ethical dimension" to foreign policy.

Although the phrase was missing from the speech, a spokesman for Mr Cook denied
he had abandoned the commitment.

The foreign secretary said in the era of globalisation he wanted to pursue a
policy of "critical engagement" with most countries, although states such as
Iraq and Burma would remain isolated.

He argued that critical engagement had produced results in Libya and Iran,
through the handover of the Lockerbie bombing suspects and the removal of the
fatwa on Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

Mr Cook said the policy's biggest challenge was how to integrate Russia into
European structures, adding that the west "has not been as skilful as it might
have been in helping replace communism with a market economy and rule of law".

He said securing Britain's national interest meant forging tactical alliances to
tackle transnational challenges such as the drugs trade and nuclear
proliferation.

"That is why this government believes that Britain is best served by a foreign
policy of enlightened self-interest," said Mr Cook.

He said he rejected the view that "because we cannot make the world perfect, we
should give up trying to make it better".

He said the government had given a new priority to human rights, and had
introduced tough new criteria on arms sales.

But Tony Blair, prime minister, recently overruled the Foreign Office and
insisted Britain supply Zimbabwe with spares for its fighter aircraft despite
the country's involvement in the Congo civil war.

Mark Latimer, Amnesty International director, said the Foreign Office's good
record on human rights was being marred by arms sales to oppressive regimes.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Tory foreign secretary, said: "What the foreign
secretary is saying is: 'Well, when it's in our national interest we will pursue
a policy based on ethical considerations but when it is not practical no one
should expect us to'."

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 29, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

BOOKS: Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't!: The attitude of Kipling's grumpy camels is
still echoed by the protagonists in messy Middle East politics, writes Cal
McCrystal

BYLINE: By CAL MCCRYSTAL

SECTION: BOOKS; Pg. 5

LENGTH: 1557 words

RIGHTEOUS VICTIMS: History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-1999 by Benny
Morris

In historical accounts of the Arab-Israeli conflict, one is struck forcibly by
events which have caused the so-called "special relationship" between Britain
and the US to be eclipsed - or very nearly so -by a special relationship between
the US and embryonic Israel. In 1945, following a war in which they were staunch
allies with a more or less common focus, Britain and America went for each
other's throats over Zionist ambitions for Palestine and Arab repudiation of
those ambitions.

Given that the plight of European Jews had to be resolved as quickly and
sympathetically as possible by carving out a homeland for them out of territory
claimed by others, the Anglo-American conflict is not surprising, at least in
retrospect. But the friction very nearly got out of hand at the time - as it was
to do later.

Dean Acheson, Under Secretary of State in the Truman Administration, gave an
alarmingly intimate portrayal of those tense post-war months in his
autobiography Present at the Creation. One chapter, "The Puzzle of Palestine",
is memorable. Acheson believed that Zionism, as an American governmental policy,
would allow the "mystical emotion" of the Jews "to obscure the totality of
American interests". State department colleagues pointed out grave complications
in moving toward Palestine, either as an Arab state with a Jewish minority or as
a Jewish state with an Arab minority. President Truman's view, however, was to
get Europe's displaced Jews into Palestine in the short term, and let the newly
created United Nations pick up the pieces in the longer term. He seemed to pay
little heed to an Anglo-American committee of inquiry which recommended that Jew
should not dominate Arab, nor Arab Jew; the proposed state should be neither
Jewish nor Arab, and it should protect and preserve the interests of all in the
holy places of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths.

Britain insisted that Palestine's illegal armies, among them Jewish terrorist
organisations, should be disbanded before 100,000 Jewish immigrants could be
admitted. Clement Attlee, Britain's new prime minister, was deeply annoyed, as
(Acheson declared) the two Great Powers grew further apart. Ernest Bevin, the
foreign secretary, raised the temperature by telling the annual Labour Party
conference at Bournemouth: "I hope it will not be misunderstood in America if I
say, with the purest of motives, that (US policy toward Jewish immigration into
Palestine) was because they did not want too many of them in New York." Things
clattered downhill from that point.

Benny Morris in Righteous Victims does not mention Acheson. But his portrayal of
the downhill process is even more intimate. Even as hitherto anti-Zionist
American officials were converted by "what these Jews have done in Palestine . .
. the greatest creative effort in the modern world", the British and the Jews
were killing one another, and English anti-Semitism raised its ugly head above
the flaming dunes. After terrorists blew up the King David Hotel, which served
as a British military and administrative headquarters in Jerusalem, Lt. Gen Sir
Evelyn Barker issued a nonfraternisation order, barring personnel from "any
social intercourse with any Jew", in order to punish "the Jews in a way the race
dislikes as much as any, by striking at their pockets". Subsequent British
efforts to hold constructive meetings with Jews and Arabs suffered a double
boycott. British forces and the Jewish terrorist Irgun traded atrocities, and -
in 1947 - London finally dumped Palestine in the UN's lap, as Truman had
suggested two years earlier.

Morris - Professor of History at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba - has produced
a book that is both comforting and worrying. The comfort is in its remarkably
objective approach and absence of the "mystical emotion" which bothered Dean
Acheson and has blighted other attempts to convey understanding. The worry is
that his "righteous victims" (on both sides of the divide) are destined to be
afflicted with their condition indefinitely. The author's clear, calm exposition
of messy Middle East history hardly suggests that a solution is imminent, even
as Israeli, Palestinian (and Syrian) leaders today grope for one in the timeless
sands. Their incapacity, or unwillingness, to suspend their antipathies and meet
the fundamental problem squarely is an echo of the marching song of the grousing
camels reported by Kipling - "Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't!"

The fundamental problem is that Zionism was designed to end the awful
predicament of one set of people (the Jews surviving the pogroms of eastern
Europe and Hitler's Final Solution), but in doing so usurped the human and
property rights of others (the Palestinians), thus guaranteeing everlasting
conflict. Zionism succeeded in creating a state and wrecking a state without
conscious malevolence. Its victims were slow to respond, but when they did it
was vengefully and righteously. That, in turn, prompted righteous and vengeful
retaliation. And so it goes.

Absorbed as I was by Morris's book, I could not avoid being drawn to an ironic
volume, Absentee Ownership, by Thorstein Veblen, an American economist and
social scientist who died in the year Wall Street crashed. Veblen held that
state-making was a competitive enterprise of war and politics, in which rival
establishments each sought their own advantage at the cost of any whom it might
concern. "Being essentially a predatory exercise, its ways and means were fraud
and force." As a matter of course, the loss, damage, decay or discomfort of any
one counted as gain for the rest; all gains being differential gains. "It was
always, as it has always continued to be, an enterprise of intimidation which
counted on an eventual recourse to arms - ultima ratio principum -and the
business was always, then as now, worked out in terms of mutual damage and
discomfort; the cost in life and substance falling . . . on the underlying
population."

There is more than a trace of Veblen in Morris's compelling narrative. "The
conflict, and the wars that punctuated it, paradoxically served as a catalyst to
both peacemaking and further wars," he says. "The grief, suffering, and great
material loss caused by war inclines people to seek peace; this was as true for
Israelis as for Arabs after each war between them. But war also breeds hatred,
vengeful ness, and territorial changes that provoke new bouts, and the Israeli-
Arab confrontations have been no exception."

In 1967 I was in Israel to write about the Six-Day War. After it, I sensed a
tremendous feeling of hope and finality in the air. The war gave the victorious
Israelis the Sinai Peninsula, Golan and the West Bank which, it was believed,
Israel could eventually trade for peace (as indeed it did with Egypt in the case
of Sinai). But my expectation turned out to be premature. That war, Morris says,
"also gave rise in Israel to a reborn expansionist spirit and territorial greed
- quickly expressed in a settlement enterprise - that made the prospect of peace
that much more remote".

At no point in Morris's journey - from the Ottoman administration of Palestine
to the arrival of the Barak government last May - can one derive evidence that
peace can be permanently imposed on the territory or eventually may come
"dropping slow". Too many Israelis, and too many leaders of world Jewry, share a
view expressed by the Zionist brothers Moshe and Zeev Smilansky in 1908, that
mixing with Arabs in a future Jewish homeland would lead to infection with the
base morals of the fellahin. Six years later Moshe became a moderate, calling on
Zionists to find a modus vivendi with the Palestinians. His call met stony
ground.

David Ben-Gurion struck a similar attitude only 10 years before becoming
Israel's first prime minister in 1948. "When we say that the Arabs are the
aggressors and we defend ourselves - that is only half the truth . . . But the
fighting is only one aspect of the conflict, which is in its essence a political
one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves." More
recently, Yitzhak Rabin also sought a modus vivendi, and was murdered for his
pains in 1997.

Since then the Palestinians have acquired from a reluctant Israel a ramshackle
and less than viable "homeland", but it is being administered beneath storm
clouds. Like most nationalist movements, Morris observes, Zionism, once
ascendant, was unmarked by feelings of generosity towards its enemies. The only
language either side has understood is force, while "only the successive
displays of persuasive force have made both peoples sit up and contemplate a
future of coexistence without violence".

When he looks into the dusty distance he sees a great deal of pain as other
nations - Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan - continue to harbour notions about
destroying the Israeli state. "There is no certainty that Israeli goodwill or
ill-will, flexibility or inflexibility, will decisively temper or resolve this
century-old conflict," he concludes ominously. "Great Power rivalries or
intervention, and nuclear weapons, may prove far more telling." To order
'Righteous Victims' at a special price of Pounds 23 (free p&p in the UK), call
FT Bookshop on +44(0)181-324 5511.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 24, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

LEX COLUMN: Oil price LEX COLUMN:

SECTION: LEX COLUMN; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 270 words

Oil price

Opec threatens to become a victim of its own success. By sticking resolutely to
the production cuts agreed last March, the cartel has forced world oil stocks to
a 20-year-low, according to the International Energy Agency. Add a sudden cold
snap in the US north-east and oil prices have shot up from Dollars 24 to nearly
Dollars 30 per barrel in two weeks. Flushed with a sense of renewed power, some
of Opec's hardline members - principally Iran, Libya and Algeria - are now
proposing to extend the production cuts to September, far beyond their intended
expiry. This threatens to squeeze short-term prices even higher.

Oil at Dollars 30 a barrel or more is in nobody's interest. Prices at that
level, if sustained, will trigger higher inflation and choke off economic
growth. The west will suffer badly enough, despite its shift to services and
technology. But the real damage will be done in the developing world, which
still relies more on energy-intensive manufacturing. If Opec lets high oil
prices undermine growth in Asia and Latin America, where consumption is rising
fastest, it will end up damaging its best customers.

The cartel's challenge is to try and keep the oil price in a sensible band -
perhaps between Dollars 20 and Dollars 25. Saudi Arabia understands this and
probably recognises the need for an increase in production quotas. Some of the
other producers may prefer the immediate boost to revenues from the current high
price. But the higher the price rises now, the greater the likelihood that Opec
will dissolve in squabbles. That would rapidly usher in a lower oil price.

LOAD-DATE: January 24, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 22, 2000, Saturday USA Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE: INTERNATIONAL: Cold weather spurs on rising crude oil
prices

BYLINE: By WALID EL-GABRY

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 402 words

Crude oil prices reached nine-year highs yesterday, as cold weather in the US
and fears of dwindling heating oil stocks sent markets racing.

Brent crude futures closed at Dollars 26.35 a barrel, up 25 cents after London's
International Petroleum Exchange took its cue from the New York Mercantile
Exchange, where light crude futures almost reached Dollars 30 a barrel on
Thursday night. The Nymex crude futures contract closed yesterday up 23 cents at
Dollars 28.20

Oil prices have staged a remarkable reversal from historically low prices last
year, thanks to production restraint by members of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries.

Peter Gignoux, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney, said: "The Monday before
last (Nymex) was Dollars 24 a barrel - now it's up to Dollars 29.95 and heating
oil is up 8.5 per cent. There is very strong momentum.

"We could have a fall-back of 10 per cent without beginning to threaten the
momentum of this market."

On Thursday the Paris-based International Energy Agency warned that continued
producer restraint would create a global supply shortfall of 2m-3m barrels per
day in the first quarter of this year and 1m-1.5m barrels per day in the second
quarter. However, Mr Gignoux dismissed comparisons with the 1970s oil crisis.
"We don't have a sustained high price yet - we just have a blip on the screen."

In spite of the meteoric price rise last year, the increases were not as
inflationary as they had been two decades ago when industrialised nations were
more dependent on oil, he said.

Mr Gignoux estimated the average price of US oil to be Dollars 18 a barrel in
1999 - Dollars 1 less than in 1987.

However, Otmar Issing, chief economist at the European Central Bank, warned
yesterday there was a danger that the temporary rise in inflation due to surging
oil prices would become more permanent if it led to higher wage settlements.

Opec members favour extending the production curb beyond March. Yesterday
ministers from Iran, Algeria and Libya indicated after a meeting in Tripoli they
would push for a six-month extension at Opec's meeting on March 27. However,
Saudi Arabia has said it will not allow prices to threaten economic growth.

The dramatic rise in oil prices is set to result in strong fourth-quarter
earnings for the big US oil companies, which are due to report results in the
coming week. Market report, Page 16

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 22, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

OFF CENTRE: 'I wouldn't mind even finishing up last...'

BYLINE: By JEREMY HART

SECTION: OFF CENTRE; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 473 words

It's one way of recharging the batteries. Some people choose a health farm or a
holiday to escape the stress of work. Nick Ashley chooses to race through the
Sahara Desert at 100 miles an hour in a Pounds 60,000 rally car.

"Sometimes you just have to go out there and do something like this, something
that goes completely against the way we live the rest of our lives," said a
dishevelled Ashley, leaning against a black and white Toyota 4x4 in the Dakar
Rally overnight bivouac of Bobo Dioulasso in Burkina Faso.

Ashley is the son of the late Laura Ashley, who built the eponymous clothing and
furnishing empire. A keen motorcylist, Ashley runs his own shop in London's
Chelsea, which sells his motorcycle and adventure clothing designs.

Last weekend, however, he was a world away from fashionable west London. He was
in Libya, waiting for the terrorist threat against the Dakar Rally to be dealt
with.

Rather than wince at the thought of being caught in the terrorist crossfire,
Ashley seemed to relish it. He was in his element. He had, after all, spent the
first week of the rally fighting sandstorms, 100Degrees F temperatures and
tracks littered with holes the size of bathtubs to climb the leaderboard to a
respectable 65th out of 113 in his class.

For modern-day automotive explorers such as Ashley, the Dakar Rally offers about
the last real opportunity to race against ex-Formula One drivers and rally stars
in an event that uses the world's largest desert as its race track.

"I don't care where we finish. I wouldn't mind even finishing last," admitted
Ashley, who has raced scramble bikes and Land Rovers near his home in the Welsh
hills. "I am just chuffed to be here. It sounds corny but it's a dream come
true."

Ashley's dream-maker was the race organiser, Frenchman Hubert Auriol. On a
pro-motional trip to London, he told Ashley that Toyota was making available a
fleet of pay-and-drive rally vehicles to anyone with Pounds 60,000. Within 24
hours Ashley had funding in place.

"To have done it on my own, preparing my own car would have cost maybe twice as
much," said Ashley. "There are a couple of teams of Britons who are doing it on
a smaller budget than us, but they have to drive 10,000km for 17 days and then
every night have to fix their own car. When we arrive at the bivouac each night,
there are mechanics waiting to fix ours.

"I am not taking unnecessary risks. I will go as fast as I can until Ben
(Shukburgh, his navi-gator and brother-in-law) tells me to slow down," he said.

Ashley's wife Ari is against his African adventure, however: "She is very anti
the whole thing, but she got a computer for Christmas and has been following me
on the internet. Even our children have been charting my route."

* To follow Nick Ashley's progress log on to www.dakar.com

Jeremy Hart

LOAD-DATE: January 22, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 22, 2000, Saturday London Edition 1

OFF CENTRE: A frying circus in the Sahara: It's hot, dirty and vulnerable to
bandits, but the Dakar Rally attracts big-budget teams.Mac McDiarmid asks how
much longer it can go on

BYLINE: By MAC MCDIARMID

SECTION: OFF CENTRE; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 1246 words

At first light this morning, the shattered remnants of thefirst big motorsport
event of the century began charging over the giant dunes of the Egyptian desert
from Dakhla to the oasis of Wadi Rayan.

By day's end they will have completed 450 miles over some of the cruellest
terrain on earth. By dawn tomorrow, just 90 miles will separate them from the
finish of the 22nd Dakar Rally in the shadow of Egypt's pyramids.

The toughest race in the world was born 21 years ago out of France's enduring
preoccupation with the Sahara. When Thierry Sabine planned that first crazy
desert adventure on two and four wheels from Paris to Dakar, he began a
phenomenon that has enthralled much of Europe every year since as the mad and
the hopeful roared into the desert.

Most have not made it to the end, and a few have died trying. Sabine himself was
killed along with four others in a helicopter crash near Gourma, Mali, in 1986.
The Thierry Sabine Organisation (TSO) continues to organise the event.

This year, for the first time since 1992, the rally passed through Libya.
Planning for the route began four years ago. In April 1999, at a press
conference arranged six weeks previously, the route for Dakar 2000 was formally
unveiled - on the very day sanctions against Colonel Gadaffi's regime were
lifted.

At that time it seemed that fate smiles on the Dakar, if race director Hubert
Auriol's insistence that this was pure coincidence was to be believed.

During Stage Six of this year's event, unkinder events intervened. Rally
security chief Roger Kalmanovitz received information from the French Foreign
Ministry of intended terrorist attacks on the rally between Niamey and the
Libyan border.

Rather than abandon the rally, officials took the unprecedented step of
airlifting the event 1,250 miles to the Libyan airstrips at Sabbah and Waw el
Kebir, bypassing Niger and the zone of greatest risk. The airlift meant the
cancellation of four stages and almost 1,860 miles of the rally before racing
resumed last Monday.

Overseen by logistical director Etienne Lavigne, this huge operation involved
the carriage of 1,365 people and 336 vehicles, including 113 cars, 143
motorcycles and 64 trucks, as well as numerous support and media vehicles. Two
huge Antonov 124 freight aircraft - bigger than a Jumbo jet - were chartered to
augment the 22 aircraft already supporting the rally for the 10-hour round trip.

The cost to TSO is estimated at FFr30m (Pounds 2.88m) out of a normal annual
turnover of FFr100m. But the longer term effects could prove even more costly.
Old Dakar hands even wonder if the event can survive when it is so easily
thwarted by a rebel group.

Even without such intrusions, this year's route was always going to ask even
tougher questions than usual. When more than 600 racers and dreamers left
Senegal on January 6, ahead of them was - or so they thought - more than 6,000
miles of rocks, dust and sand before the finish in Cairo tomorrow.

In its early days, the rally was a much more amateurish affair than the highly
organised media circus it has become: no satellite navigation, just a compass
and a prayer, and little back-up. People got lost for days (although few had an
army out looking for them, as former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher
insisted on for her son, Mark, when he went astray).

What used to happen was: Sabine would hand out maps; he would say something like
"See you in Agadez in three days"; and he would not be surprised when half the
field failed to arrive.

Ullrich Bremmer, head of the RallyArt Mitsubishi squad, has 19

Dakar rallies behind him. "In that time," he said, "it has changed from an
adventure with a race attached, into a race which is also an adventure.

"In the old days we had nothing to drink, just one small meal per day, and the
transport was just two DC3 Dakotas. Sometimes 400 vehicles would queue for fuel
at one hand-cranked pump, working on their machines in the line."

In contrast, no army on earth moves men and equipment so efficiently as today's
Dakar Rally - which is why the French military routinely sends observers to
study the event. Each night a town springs up around an airstrip in the desert,
1,600-strong at the start of this year's race.

Every mouth is fed, there's a medical centre, satellite communications suite,
media office, computerised race control, timing facility, plus all the back-up
that hundreds of racing vehicles demand.

A squadron of 22 aircraft and a fleet of trucks bring in supplies, spares,
people and food. Eight helicopters provide mobile cam era platforms, medical and
logistic support.

Some of the fuel for the rally leaves France by truck three weeks before the
race begins. Other trucks join in to build bridges and make roads so the fuel
vehicles can get through. Where necessary, airstrips are extended - just so the
rally can hammer east from Dakar.

In essence there are two Dakar rallies. In one, big-budget teams charge across
the Sahara in a quest for corporate publicity and personal kudos.

In continental Europe - Britain, for the most part, has remained stubbornly
aloof from this desert fever - the media hangs on their every move, supported by
the usual battery of publicity people. To the likes of Mitsubishi and Nissan in
the car world, and motorcycling's BMW and KTM, it's commercial war by attrition.

It is easy to contrast this extravagance with the poverty through which every
Dakar Rally passes. Most local people react with unalloyed delight at this
strange and noisy intrusion.

Pascal, a teacher of French in Burkino Faso, described the rally as "the biggest
party of the year, and a big factor in local commerce". Indeed, the government
of Niger described the loss of this year's event as a "disaster".

But spare a thought, too, for the anonymous majority of the field. These are
men, and a few women, who have ploughed everything into their Dakar vision. One
UK competitor is part of a big team but the rest fall into the latter category.

Plymouth's John Deacon, riding a BMW, has big-budget backing and hopes were high
that he could give Britain its first podium finish. He lay in ninth place when
he crashed out on day six, sustaining hip and shoulder injuries.

But as well as Deacon, this year's British contingent numbered three cars, seven
motorcycles and one "quad" machine, of which three had retired by mid-distance.
Dave Hammond, a 35-year-old Dakar newcomer riding a 650cc KTM Rallye, was in an
impressive 28th place.

Even the most cost-cutting entry costs about Pounds 20,000 and obliges the rider
to spend perhaps 15 hours a day in the saddle, then service his machine,
organise his logistics and try to sleep. Perhaps one-third of them will make the
finish to realise a personal goal decades in the dreaming.

The rest will have succumbed to broken bones, dehydration, crashes, breakdowns,
sheer exhaustion - or bandit attack, as has happened during the previous two
years.

Last year, near Tichit in Mauritania, 52 people in 22 vehicles were ambushed at
gun-point and robbed. The leader of the rebel group bade them farewell with the
ominous words: "Thanks, see you next year."

This year's route was changed to avoid bandit country, only to encounter a far
worse terrorism threat in Niger. The Dakar Rally has overcome a lot, but surely
it cannot carry on this way: the organisation has grown slick and professional -
but so have those who would seek to exploit it.

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 22, 2000, Saturday Surveys TVL1

SURVEY - FT TRAVEL SUPPLEMENT: Which way next for tourism?: There are nine
routes to cities of culture in Europe this year. Antony Thorncroft compares
their approaches and asks whether the great attractions can withstand mass
tourism

BYLINE: By TONY THORNCROFT

SECTION: SURVEY - FT TRAVEL SUPPLEMENT; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1274 words

The selection of one city each year to be the cultural capital of Europe was one
of the European Union's better ideas.

Not much money is involved but the chosen city, especially if it dominates an
autonomous, and potentially fractious, region, as do Glasgow and Antwerp, can
usually persuade its national government to come up with more cash; as a way of
unblocking long-delayed plans to build a new opera house or an art gallery it
can hardly be bettered.

Over the past 15 years cultural capitals have worked best when the city chosen
is not a major capital - Paris and Madrid have enough arts activity anyway so
that receiving the European title hardly made an impact.

It brought a difference to smaller capitals, such as Lisbon and Copenhagen,
which suddenly had something more to offer potential visitors, and to places
such as Glasgow, Weimar and Antwerp, which had traditionally been off the
tourist map. Indeed Glasgow used its cultural year to change its global image
significantly - from a city of drinkers to one of divas, from slums to symphony
halls.

Nine cities made serious proposals to be the cultural capital in 2000. The EU,
in a typically irresolute com-promise, ducked a choice and gave the sobriquet to
all nine. So in the next 12 months there are many, many, more good reasons to
visit Avignon, Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Krakow, Helsinki, Prague, Reykjavik
and Santiago de Compostela.

Of course, the original optimistic idea that the nine cities would co-operate on
joint projects which would show how Europe was coming together culturally as
well as politically proved pie in the sky. Artistic directors were sacked, or
resigned, with amazing alacrity in many cities, especially among the southern
group, where politics often reared its ugly head.

The choice of nine cities also revealed interesting differences in the approach
to culture across Europe - for cities in the south the traditional high arts,
especially opera and classical music and drama, seemed paramount, while the
northern cities favoured a more modern, populist and all-embracing approach.

There was also a tendency to pitch northern business-like planning and
efficiency against southern short-termism and improvisation.

This was noticed most in Helsinki which, with Pounds 30m to invest, by far the
largest budget of any of the nine cities, was quite prepared to take a lead in
initiating concepts, such as Cafe 9, a cafe in each city which, through video
screens, links the day's cultural activities, and touring exhibitions which
could help to meld and confirm pan-European amity.

It was Helsinki that created the glass cubes, reflecting light and promoting
events, which it sent to its eight companions in 1999 to help publicise the
Millennial cultural explosion. In the event Helsinki is co-operating most
closely with its northern neighbours, and its proselytising zeal has not
permeated to the Mediterranean lands.

Perhaps it does not matter too much. All nine cities will be much more exciting
places to visit this year because of the layers of culture which are being
spread across them to varying degrees. To a great extent the culture will be
more like folk art, digging deep into the traditions of the cities, and placing
great emphasis on local customs. It will be most apparent at street level,
rather than in opera houses, and probably more appealing to tourists as a
result.

And, of course, it is totally in line with wider developments in the travel
trade.

Cultural tourism is the area of greatest and certainly most profitable growth,
such as Swan Hellenic tours of classical Greece and Turkey; the hundreds of
cruise ships, which, in good times, take in the temples of ancient Egypt on the
Nile between Luxor and Aswan; the pursuit of the Moghuls through their great
building works in northern India from the Red Fort to the Taj Mahal; and, as
horizons broaden, the re-discovery through their ruined monuments of the
civilisations of the Aztecs in Mexico, the Maya in Central America, and the
Incas in Peru.

Cultural tourism hits the spot for the growing army of the early, and richly,
retired, and the more intellectually aspiring young. It has been encouraged by
worries about the health hazards from traditional hedonistic sun, sea and sand
holidays, and a general trend towards more challenging leisure breaks, for the
mind as well as the body.

Even in the Caribbean, increasing popular tedium with sun lounging, and concerns
there about a less predictable climate, have seen the development of a rash of
festivals to give a purpose to a trip: this month Barbados is getting in early
with its Jazz Festival, with St Lucia and Jamaica still to come.

The spread of cultural tourism outside Europe has barely come in time to prevent
unacceptable congestion in the traditional artistic honey pots, in particular in
Italy. Access to Venice and Florence is now controlled, and anyone arriving in
summer in either city faces the unenviable experience of moving en masse through
narrow Venetian alleys into a heaving San Marco, or queueing for over four hours
to visit the Uffizi in Florence.

No wonder the most spectacular monuments in Italy have now been removed from
their traditional outdoor locations into mus-eums. Mass tourism has squeezed the
pleasure from summer visits to the traditional cities, including Pisa and Siena,
although fortunately there are still equally choice alternatives, such as Lucca
and Bologna, which have so far avoided total immersion by coach party.

There is another safety valve for the aspiring cultural tourist inside Europe -
the East. Prague has been quickly marketed, but Budapest offers the appeal of
both the medieval Buda and the fine late-19th century Pest, while the Baltic
capitals of Riga and Tallinn make the perfect long weekend break at any time of
the year. Lack of money prevented the Soviets from destroying the old centres of
these once prosperous cities, and for a wider perspective on European history,
covering such over-looked subjects as northern Crusaders and the importance of
Baltic trade, you must go east.

But ultimately cultural tourism will always be self-defeating. The great works
of art and the sites can only be enjoyed in total or relative solitude.
Straining for a glimpse of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" in a packed Uffizi, or
sharing the Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza with day-trippers from a cruise ship
demeans both the artefact and the experience.

With the Roman remains of Libya opening up again this year, and with Syria
already appreciated by discerning travellers, there will soon be few major
footprints of civilisation left to uncover. The jungle ruins at Angkor in
Cambodia have already been exposed, along with the cities on the ancient silk
route linking China and the west. Tour operators, skilled in beavering out "new"
destinations, will be probing deeper into eastern Turkey, politics permitting,
and into the once rich cities on the edge of the Sahara. China will doubtless
have more treasures to offer.

There are still countries where the artistic heritage is largely ignored in the
tourist rush for the beach - Port-ugal and Turkey are the nearest examples -
while the small cathedral towns of northern France and the medieval cities of
Germany can still surprise in their peaceful splendour. But, in the main, the
most acclaimed spots, from the Alhambra in Granada to the canals of Bruges, are
now overwhelmed with tourists. Perhaps the best advice is to go everywhere now
before you need a time-controlled admission ticket to visit Florence and the
patience of Job to get into the Louvre.

LOAD-DATE: January 22, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 18, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Prodi's progress: Faltering initiatives and open criticism
of his style have signalled the end of the brief honeymoon for the latest
president of the European Commission, writes Peter Norman:

BYLINE: By PETER NORMAN

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 1302 words

Romano Prodi is learning how hard it is to lead the European Commission.

When the 60-year-old former Italian prime minister took over as president of the
European Union's central bureaucracy last September, he promised a "new era of
change" under a "world class public administration". His affable manner
encouraged hopes that he would bring to Brussels a new spirit of openness. Yet
Mr Prodi is starting to look like a man under siege.

The latest setback came when the European Parliament forced him to delay an
address planned for tomorrow to spell out Commission strategy for the next five
years. His Christmas invitation to Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, to visit
Brussels caused upset in several EU foreign ministries. At last month's Helsinki
summit, a subdued Mr Prodi was upstaged by Javier Solana, the EU's newly
appointed foreign policy chief.

A number of Prodi initiatives announced with a fanfare in recent months have
either failed to materialise or been heavily diluted following opposition from
member states. Even supporters concede that his handling of recent press
conferences has been rambling and diffuse. In some EU capitals, officials mutter
that he is proving a loose cannon.

"He is finding it all much harder than he expected," says Peter Ludlow, director
of the Centre for European Policy Studies, and one of Mr Prodi's unofficial
advisers. Last week, widespread gossip in the European Parliament that Mr Prodi
was not enjoying his job in comparison with being Italian prime minister added
to the sense that something was wrong.

Mr Prodi can hardly be blamed for finding his job tough. The president of the
Commission appears on the world stage as often as many heads of government, yet
lacks the mandate and powers of a national leader. Furthermore, the Commission,
despite having a monopoly on proposing EU laws, and control over policy areas
such as competition and agriculture policy, has been losing power.

Some of the influence has been ceded to the Council of Ministers, representing
EU member states, in recent years. The parliament has also gained in status -
notably when it prompted Jacques Santer, the previous president, and his 19
fellow commissioners to resign en masse last March over allegations of fraud,
nepotism and mismanagement.

A backlash against Mr Prodi may have been inevitable after the hopes pinned on
him when he was chosen by EU leaders less than 10 days after the resignation of
the Santer commission. The expectations grew during the summer as Mr Prodi used
his skills in networking and cajoling to build a well-regarded team of
commissioners from the member states' nominees. By Christmas, his honeymoon was
over. Mr Prodi now faces some crucial months. He must provide proof he can shake
up a demoralised and weakened bureaucracy, oversee EU enlargement to perhaps
more than 20 countries, guide the necessary reform of the EU's decision-making
processes and help steer the EU to a role in global politics appropriate to its
considerable economic strength.

The most common criticism of Mr Prodi is that he tends to launch initiatives
without ensuring the full backing of member states, and then let them slip. One
example was his call last September for the December 1999 Helsinki summit to set
firm dates for the most promising EU candidate countries to join the EU. Within
a fortnight he was in retreat, after member states signalled their unease.

An even more disturbing case, as far as his critics are concerned, was an
initiative taken before he had even been confirmed as president. He decided to
set up a three-strong group of "wise men", headed by Jean-Luc Dehaene, the
former prime minister of Belgium. His intention was to advance his wish for a
broad agenda at this year's intergovernmental conference (IGC) on institutional
reform. But his handling of the Dehaene report, after it was published in
October, irritated member states and members of the European Parliament.

The trouble surfaced when Mr Prodi outlined the report at October's special EU
summit in Tampere. Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish prime minister, said the
Commission president could have as many wise men as he liked, but they were
superfluous because EU government leaders were responsible for the IGC. "We are
the wise men," Mr Aznar was reported as saying.

Perhaps because of insufficient support from the summit, Mr Prodi then held back
from lobbying hard for the report's recommendations. That upset the European
Parliament and those countries such as Belgium and Luxembourg which favoured a
wide-ranging IGC agenda. Ultimately, the Helsinki summit left the door ajar for
a possible modest expansion of the IGC agenda later this year. But the damage to
his reputation was done.

The two Prodi initiatives prompted Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime
minister, to break the EU leaders' practice of refraining from criticising each
other publicly. In an interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
newspaper, Mr Juncker commented that the gap between Mr Prodi's aspirations and
achievements could prompt the European Parliament to conclude that the
Commission president was a failure.

Mr Prodi's supporters point out that it is part of the Commission president's
job to float ideas for potential EU reform and restructuring. They also point
out that it took Jacques Delors, the Frenchman who ran the Commission for 10
years from 1985, six months before produced his first successful "big idea" -
the EU's single market plan.

Furthermore, not all heads of state are as worried as Mr Juncker by Mr Prodi's
performance. Tony Blair, the British prime minister, is a fan despite an
unwelcome call by Mr Prodi for the establishment of a European army last May. Mr
Prodi's invitation to Mr Gadaffi seems to have had little adverse impact on
relations with Downing Street, despite the UK's seizure of Scud missile parts
destined for Libya at Gatwick airport in November.

Yet the UK has different expectations of Mr Prodi than most other member states.
While many EU leaders look to Mr Prodi to advance the European ideal, Mr Blair's
main wish is for Mr Prodi - alongside Neil Kinnock, his vice-president - to
clean up the Commission. If Mr Prodi succeeds with this initiative, he may be
forgiven other lapses of judgment.

The fate of reform of the Commission is still in the balance. Charles Grant,
director of the London-based Centre for European Reform, says Mr Prodi's
decision to end the practice of awarding senior Commission posts to nationals of
a specific country was "very positive". But already there are rumblings among
MEPs that Mr Prodi should do more to root out officials tainted by past
scandals.

"Tension is mounting because of uncertainty whether promises Prodi made for a
radical overhaul of the Commission will now be delivered in practice." says
James Elles, the UK Conservative MEP who played a leading role in ending the
Santer commission.

According to Mr Ludlow of CEPS, Mr Prodi is on a steep learning curve. He has
been "chastened" by the difficulties he faces in reforming the Commission and
turning it into an effective instrument of policy in areas such as the Balkans.
His team has also been unpleasantly surprised at the level of demoralisation in
the Commission after the upheavals of the past year. But Commission officials
say the difficulties are no reason to harbour doubts about Mr Prodi.

They insist that he has returned from the Christmas break in good spirits, ready
to face the trials of strength that lie ahead. It is now clear that his
performance will be under unprecedented scrutiny in Brussels and EU capitals.
"But you should never underestimate Prodi," Mr Ludlow says. "There are ideas and
leadership capacity behind the funny, cuddly exterior and the fuzzy words."

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 14, 2000, Friday London Edition 3

SHORTS: Bank of England raises interest rates to 5.75%

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 35 words

Britons feared dead in air crash

A Swiss-registered charter plane with 41 people aboard, mostly Libyan and
British oil workers, crashed in the sea off Libya yesterday. As many as 17
people were feared dead.

LOAD-DATE: January 14, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 11, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

SHORTS: ranian foreign minister in town

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 52 words

Iranian foreign minister in town

The government underscored its determination for diplomatic engagement with
wayward Middle East regimes by greeting the first Iranian foreign minister to
visit Britain since 1979 and by insulating its new diplomatic ties with Libya
from evidence of arms smuggling. Page 6

LOAD-DATE: January 11, 2000

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Financial Times (London,England)

January 11, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: Cook builds bridges with Libya and Iran DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
FOREIGN OFFICE UNDERSCORES TIES WITH MIDDLE EAST REGIMES:

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 454 words

The government yesterday underscored its determination for diplomatic engagement
with more wayward Middle East regimes by greeting the first Iranian foreign
minister to visit Britain since the 1979 revolution and by insulating its new
diplomatic ties with Libya from evidence of arms smuggling.

UK diplomats highlighted their measured approach to Libya by disclosing that
they first suspected that Tripoli might be trying to smuggle missiles parts via
Britain as early as last April, well before Britain agreed in July to
re-establish diplomatic relations with the country after a 15-year gap.

After weekend press reports that Britain had "seized" Scud missile components in
November at Gatwick airport, Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, directed the
UK's ambassador in Tripoli to express Britain's "grave concern" to the Libyan
government.

Yesterday, UK officials disclosed that they had early on co-opted Malta, which
had been declared as the end-user of the missile parts into their investigation,
and that the goods had actually been "impounded" last July and definitively
"seized" last November.

This apparent UK determination to pursue diplomatic ties prompted speculation
that re-establishment of full diplomatic ties might have been part of Libya's
price for earlier turning its two agents suspected of the Lockerbie bombing over
for trial last year under Scottish law in the Netherlands. However, officials
also stressed yesterday that the parts discovered at Gatwick belonged to Scud
Bs, missiles with only a 300km range, rather than Scud Cs, which could threaten
European countries such as Italy.

Mr Cook emphasised the importance of having a diplomatic "direct line to the
Libyan regime to convey any concerns we may have", and his officials took the
same tack yesterday in talking about the visit of Kamal Kharrazi, the Iranian
foreign minister.

Mr Kharrazi will be told of UK concerns about Iran's development of weapons of
mass destruction, its hostility to Israel and the Middle East peace process, and
its human rights record, including the fate of 13 Iranian Jews held for nearly a
year on charges of spying.

Mr Kharrazi will today address the Royal Institute of International Affairs and
attend a lunch in the City.

The two countries were said to be close to reaching a "standard investment
protection agreement" that would help UK companies returning to the Iranian
market. But Britain's Export Credit Guarantee Department said yesterday it could
still not offer medium-term credit cover on Iran - despite a promising risk
assessment from a ECGD team that visited the country late last year - because
Iran still refused to repay its Pounds 20m pre-revolutionary debt to Britain.

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January 11, 2000, Tuesday USA Edition 2

WORLD NEWS: UK: Iranian visit marks push for new ties MIDDLE EAST FURTHER
DISCLOSURE ON LIBYAN MISSILE PARTS:

BYLINE: By ROULA KHALAF

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: UK; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 536 words

The UK government underscored its determination for diplomatic engagement with
more wayward Middle East regimes yesterday by greeting the first Iranian foreign
minister to visit Britain since the 1979 revolution.

UK diplomats also highlighted their measured approach to Libya by disclosing
that they first suspected it might be trying to smuggle missile parts via
Britain as early as last April.

This was well before the UK agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations with the
north African country, in July, after a 15-year gap.

Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, instructed the new UK ambassador in Tripoli
to express Britain's "grave concern" to the Libyan government after weekend
press reports that Scud missile components were "seized" last November at
London's Gatwick airport.

Officials disclosed yesterday that they had co-opted Malta, declared as the
end-user of the missile parts, into their investigation and that the goods were
"impounded" last July and definitively "seized" last November.

This apparent determination to pursue diplomatic ties prompted speculation that
re-establishment of full relations might have been part of Libya's price for
turning over two agents suspected of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over
Lockerbie in Scotland. They faced trial last year under Scottish law in the
Netherlands.

But officials also stressed yesterday that the parts discovered at Gatwick
belonged to Scud Bs, which have a 300km range, rather than the latest Scud Cs,
which could threaten some European countries.

Mr Cook emphasised the importance of having a diplomatic "direct line to the
Libyan regime to convey any concerns we may have" and his officials took the
same tack yesterday in talking about the visit of Kamal Kharrazi, the Iranian
foreign minister.

Mr Kharrazi would be told of UK concerns about Iran's development of weapons of
mass destruction, its hostility to Israel and the Middle East peace process, and
its human rights record - including the fate of 13 Iranian Jews held for nearly
a year on spying charges. The British Jewish community plans to hold a vigil in
support of the 13. "Even where there are differences, and some are very real, it
makes sense to talk about them," said a Foreign Office official.

Before going into talks with Mr Cook, the Iranian foreign minister had a
35-minute meeting with Tony Blair, the prime minister. Mr Kharrazi said: "There
have been a lot of obstacles, especially in public opinion, to better relations
with Britain, but I believe the future is more promising."

Britain is due to sign a memorandum of understanding on drugs co-operation with
Iran. Tehran has taken a tough stand against heroin from neighbouring
Afghanistan, the source of most heroin reaching Britain.

The two countries were said to be close to reaching a "standard investment
protection agreement" which would help UK companies returning to the Iranian
market. But Britain's Export Credits Guarantee Department said yesterday it
could still not offer medium-term credit cover on Iran - despite a promising
assessment from an ECGD team last year - because Iran still refused to repay its
Pounds 20m (Dollars 32m) pre-revolutionary debt to Britain.

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January 10, 2000, Monday London Edition 1

SHORTS: Britain protests at Libyan smuggling of missile parts

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 30 words

Britain protested at Libya's use of Gatwick airport as a staging post in a plot
to smuggle missile parts into the north African country, in defiance of an EU
arms embargo. Page 3

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January 10, 2000, Monday London Edition 2

NATIONAL NEWS: Cook protests to Libya over smuggling of missile parts

BYLINE: By DAVID BUCHAN

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 346 words

Britain has protested at Libya's "unacceptable" behaviour in using a London
airport to smuggle missile parts into Libya in defiance of an European Union
arms embargo.

Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, yesterday said he had instructed Richard
Dalton, the UK's new ambassador in Tripoli, to convey Britain's "deep concern"
to the Libyan authorities.

They would be told "this clear breach of the EU arms embargo is unacceptable and
that there must be no repetition of such an abuse".

Customs & Excise confirmed yesterday that Scud missile parts, allegedly sent
from Taiwan, had been seized on November 24 at Gatwick on their way to Libya via
Malta.

The disclosure is particularly embarrassing because Britain has just ended a
15-year rift with Libya by re-establishing diplomatic relations.

Mr Dalton took up his post in Tripoli in December, but there is no Libyan
counterpart in London.

Foreign Office officials suggested that, provided it was not repeated, the
Gatwick incident would not prevent the exchange of ambassadors being completed
because Britain was already aware of Libya's arms aims.

Speaking on BBC television, Mr Cook claimed the incident showed the government's
wisdom in continuing to apply the EU arms embargo and international missile
technology controls on Libya.

The Libyans "cannot evade those arms embargoes and missile control regimes by
coming through Britain", said Mr Cook. "We've proved it in this case and we
expect them not to do it again."

However, the incident is likely to confirm the US in its refusal to follow
Britain in re-establishing diplomatic ties with Libya. Washington may also use
the incident to bolster the case for new anti- missile defences. The UK, like
other European states, worry these could eventually upset the strategic balance
with Russia and lead to a new arms race.

The timing of the news leak, which prompted Mr Cook's protest yesterday, could
have been designed to head off a possible visit - opposed by the UK - by Muammar
Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, to the European Commission in Brussels.

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January 6, 2000, Thursday Europe Edition 1

SHORTS: Gadaffi may visit Brussels

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 26 words

Gadaffi may visit Brussels

Diplomatic talks could herald a visit to Brussels by Libyan leader Muammer
Gadaffi, Commission officials said. Europe, Page 3

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January 6, 2000, Thursday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: EUROPE: Italy pursues role as intermediary on the diplomatic stage

BYLINE: By JAMES BLITZ

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: EUROPE; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 580 words

DATELINE: ROME

Italy's announcement that it is opening diplomatic relations with North Korea
may attract little more than passing attention. But it is the most striking sign
yet of how the Italian government is actively pursuing relations with so-called
"rogue states" faster than its main allies in Europe and the US would otherwise
dare.

At the end of last year, Massimo D'Alema, Italy's prime minister, became the
first western leader in decades to visit Tripoli and meet Muammar Gadaffi,
Libyan leader. Back in the spring, Italy became the first western country to
host a visit from an Iranian leader - President Mohammad Khatami - since the
1979 revolution.

Italy has gone further than any western state in establishing relations with
war-torn Algeria. It was one of the few Nato countries to keep open a diplomatic
channel with Belgrade during a part of the Kosovo war. It now becomes the first
member of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations to open diplomatic
relations with North Korea, at a time of continued concern over Pyongyang's
military capabilities.

In two of these cases - the strengthening of diplomatic relations with Libya and
Iran - the Italian government is keen to exploit growing commercial
opportunities. Libya's economy, for example, is expected to grow by some 5 per
cent next year as a result of the oil price rise. Keen competition is already
developing within the EU to win contracts to rebuild Tripoli's infrastructure.

But Italian foreign ministry officials say all these overtures to states on the
fringes of the world community have a common goal. Italy, they argue, is aiming
to develop its image as a "go-between", a state which is neither a great power
nor a third world country. It could therefore pave the way for the re-entry of
such states into the international community in a way that the US, the UK or
France might find more difficult.

The main architect of this policy is Lamberto Dini, Italy's foreign minister. Mr
Dini, a fluent English speaker, was a senior figure at the International
Monetary Fund in Washington for many years. He is seen as a figure trusted by
the US and has a close relationship with Madeleine Albright, US secretary of
state. "The Americans trust him to open up diplomatic channels with states such
as Libya and Iran, without conceding too much," says an Italian foreign ministry
official.

Mr Dini's approach to foreign policy has strong Italian roots. Giulio Andreotti,
the Christian Democrat who was numerous times prime minister and foreign
minister, was trusted by the US as a negotiator over Middle Eastern issues. The
policy of intermediation is also supported by the Italian political class, which
looks favourably on a "universalist" diplomacy that seeks to bring nations
together.

There is, however, some unease over Mr Dini's policy inside Italy. Some figures
close to Mr D'Alema think Rome should stop acting as a "Vatican-style"
intermediary and concentrate on punching its weight inside the EU alongside the
UK, France and Germany.

Sergio Romano, a former Italian ambassador to Nato and the Soviet Union, is
among those who believe Mr Dini's intermediation is stronger on symbolism than
substance. "It is possible that Italy might become a useful middleman in the
difficult international dialogue (with North Korea)," he wrote yesterday in the
Milan daily, Corriere Della Sera. "But I don't think the Americans really need a
postman when they want to send a message to Pyongyang."

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January 6, 2000, Thursday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: EUROPE: Gadaffi may visit EU headquarters in Brussels

BYLINE: By NEIL BUCKLEY

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: EUROPE; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 347 words

DATELINE: BRUSSELS

Diplomatic discussions could begin soon on a possible visit to Brussels by
Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader - his first visit to Europe since 1992 -
European Commission officials said yesterday.

The news came after Mr Gadaffi said on Libyan television he had been invited "a
few days ago" to visit the European Union's headquarters in Brussels and would
make the trip "at the start of the millennium".

The Commission said no formal invitation had been issued. But Mr Gadaffi had
telephoned Romano Prodi, Commission president, at his home in Bologna just
before Christmas, when the possibility of a visit was raised.

It was not clear yesterday which side had made the suggestion, but it is
understood Mr Prodi is politically in favour. "There is clearly a degree of
diplomatic engagement coming from the top," said one official.

The Commission said an invitation could be issued only through formal diplomatic
channels, after consultations including EU ministers and Javier Solana, the EU's
new foreign policy representative.

The moves towards a visit by Mr Gadaffi mark a slow but steady thaw in relations
between the EU and Tripoli over the past year.

The rapprochement has been helped by Libya's decision last year to hand over for
trial in the Netherlands two Libyan suspects charged with the bombing of a Pan
Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, when 270 people died. The trail
is expected to begin in May.

The EU downgraded diplomatic relations with Libya as part of sanctions imposed
by the United Nations Security Council in 1992 linked to the Lockerbie affair.

But officials said conditions might be attached to the visit. The EU wants Libya
to make a commitment to the so-called "Barcelona process", named after a summit
meeting which defined relations between the EU and southern Mediterranean
countries.

That would require Libya to commit itself to democracy human rights and regional
stability, as well as a move towards a market economy and free trade. Libya said
last autumn that it had no objection to the Barcelona principles.

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December 21, 1999, Tuesday USA Edition 2

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Arms race with itself leaves US no money for education

BYLINE: By DAVID E MOORE

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 375 words

From Mr David E. Moore.

Sir, We in America are in an arms race with ourselves. The Pentagon has captured
more than 50 per cent of the recently approved discretionary budget. The
expenditures planned for attack submarines (Dollars 63bn), for 3,800 new fighter
aircraft (Dollars 350bn to Dollars 450bn), for 600 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft
and other cold war era weapons are totally unnecessary.

The Center for Defense Information, a Washington think-tank, observed that the
US Congress added more than Dollars 19bn to the Dollars 281bn defense budget
this year, with Dollars 3.3bn in unrequested funding. Of those unrequested
dollars, the House-Senate Conference Committee added more than Dollars 500m
without even going to Congress before a vote of final approval for the entire
package. And 84 per cent of that Dollars 500m added to the military budget
without House or Senate scrutiny will go to the Air Force for "interim
contractor support". A fine example of the old-fashioned pork barrel!

Yet the arms race with ourselves continues. The US military already outspends by
19 times the combined spending of the seven countries the Pentagon considers
adversaries (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria). Add Russia
and China and forget all of our allies and we still outspend them 2.5 to 1.

Today the US ranks 19th in education among the 29 nations of the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development. Today 1.2m youngsters eligible for
Head Start will not get a head start for lack of federal money. Today more than
100,000 aliens are being invited to accept US citizenship if they possess
high-tech skills, because our nation is not educating enough people to fill
those jobs.

What is the purpose of the US's runaway arms build-up? If this nation is not
threatened by the Pentagon's "adversaries list", is our nation nevertheless
threatened by any of the 30 ethnic and religious wars going on right now? I
believe neither the Pentagon's adversaries nor the nations struggling with
ethnic and religious conflicts are any threat to US hegemony. Would our nation
not be better served by investing in the education, health and well being of our
own people?

David E. Moore, 8 Bird Lane, Rye, NY 10580, US

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December 9, 1999, Thursday USA Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: UK: Libyans face conspiracy charge NEWS DIGEST:

BYLINE: By GORDON CRAMB

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: UK; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 158 words

DATELINE: AMSTERDAM

LOCKERBIE CRASH

Libyans face conspiracy charge

A Scottish judge ruled yesterday that two Libyans accused of bombing a Pan Am
flight over Lockerbie, in Scotland, 11 years ago, are to face charges of
conspiracy as well as murder. Lord Sutherland, presiding in the case being held
in the Netherlands, rejected defence submissions that the court had no
jurisdiction over an alleged conspiracy that would have taken place outside
Scotland. He gave the defence more time to prepare its case, postponing the
start of the trial from February to May 3. The judge also ruled that the
indictment of Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah could
refer to their alleged membership of Libya's intelligence service, which their
lawyers argued was an unjustified attack on their character. Apart from murder
and conspiracy to murder, the two are charged with breaches of UK aviation law.
The crash killed 270. Gordon Cramb, Amsterdam

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December 8, 1999, Wednesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: TRADE: Iran lifts the veil on its economic future FREE TRADE ZONES
TAX BREAKS AND OTHER CONCESSIONS POINT TO REFORMERS' HOPES OF UNFETTERED ECONOMY
ONE DAY:

BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: TRADE; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 726 words

DATELINE: KISH ISLAND

Tax breaks, the world's cheapest energy supplies, and even outstanding beaches
are being used by reformists within the Iranian government to spearhead economic
change.

The attractions, which also include excellent lobsters, have been highlighted as
part of a renewed drive to draw foreign investors to three free trade zones
unfettered by tough restrictions on the mainland.

Iranian officials, hosting a two-day investment conference on the Gulf holiday
island of Kish, once the playground of the late Shah and his fellow casino
gamblers, sought to convince the international business community that Iran was
on the threshold of a new, more liberal, economic era.

"I believe the free zones have reached take-off point," said Hossein Nasiri,
secretary of the High Council for Iran's Free Trade and Industrial Zones. "A
national consensus has been forged and we can start a new movement," he added in
an oblique reference to conservative clerics within the regime who have tried to
block Iran's cautious opening to the world 20 years after the Islamic
revolution.

Mohammad Khatami, the reformist president, sent a message to the conference
saying the free zones could provide a model for the mainland, confirming foreign
impressions that a contained experiment in almost fully-fledged capitalism could
one day open the doors to Iran's virtually untapped market of 63m people and
abundant natural resources.

Confirmation of Iran's new direction came recently with the passing of a new
law, after a constitutional battle with hardliners, that will allow foreign
banks and insurance companies to do business in the three zones.

The zones - the two Gulf islands of Kish and Qeshm and the mainland port of
Chabahar near the border with Pakistan - were created in 1993 but have so far
struggled to attract significant levels of foreign investment. Intended to
become industrial bases that would boost non-oil exports, the zones have in fact
sucked in consumer goods from nearby Gulf Arab states which are snapped up by
Iranians attracted by lower import duties.

On paper, the zones offer substantial inducements - a 15-year holiday on income
and corporate tax, flexible labour laws, cheap land and energy and up to 100 per
cent foreign shareholding in companies. In the rest of Iran the foreign business
community is subjected to taxes of up to 54 per cent, protective labour laws
that make it almost impossible to sack employees, endless red tape and a
provision within the constitution that bars foreign concessions.

Reaction from the 25 or so foreign companies attending the conference was one of
caution and curiosity but also a nervousness over missing out on when, rather
than if, Iran eventually opens up.

Kevin Kvetron, manager of new ventures for US oil giant Chevron, was one of the
few Americans attending. At present the US Iran-Libya Sanctions Act prohibits
investments in Iran of more than Dollars 20m.

"The free trade zones seem to be a step in the right direction. It's easy to do
business, a place to enter Iran," he commented.

Edward Karr, a US manager of Parthian Securities, a Swiss financial services
company, was more upbeat and is considering launching the first investment fund
focused on Iran. "Foreign investment will come. It is inevitable. When it starts
coming I think it will be enormous. But the Iranian government has to give some
incentives and guarantees to the big name companies to get them in."

Iran this year was assigned a sovereign risk rating of B2 by Moodys, on a par
with Brazil and Venezuela. One foreign participant said his shareholders would
be looking for an annual return of at least 12 per cent to justify the perceived
political and commercial risk of doing business with Iran.

Mohammad Behkish, a professor of economics, admitted Iran had failed as a
non-oil exporting country, but insisted there had been a "revolution" in
economic thinking and the next five-year plan, to start in March 2000, would
break down several state monopolies. "The whole environment and atmosphere is
changing," he said.

Meanwhile, Kish island offers one attraction to be found nowhere else in Iran -
the only beach where foreigners of both sexes can swim together and women can
take to the crystal-clear waters in swimsuits rather than the all-enveloping
chador dictated by the Islamic dress code.

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December 3, 1999, Friday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: TRADE: Italy pursues goal of increased Libya trade

BYLINE: By JAMES BLITZ

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: TRADE; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 376 words

DATELINE: ROME

Massimo D'Alema, Italy's prime minister, yesterday sought to boost his country's
trade relationship with Libya by becoming the first western leader to hold talks
with Col Muammer Gadaffi in Tripoli in seven years.

But although Italy is keen to do business with Libya following the recent
suspension of United Nations sanctions, Mr D'Alema carefully allayed US fears
that Mr Gadaffi might soon pay a return visit to Rome.

After one hour of talks in Tripoli, Mr D'Alema said it was "important to have a
dialogue with this country, which is on its way to returning fully to the
international community". But he made clear that he did not think a visit by Mr
Gadaffi to Rome would be "realistic" for now.

Italian government officials in Rome noted that the US continued to view Libya
as a sponsor of international terrorism, despite Tripoli's recent handover of
two suspects due to face trial for involvement in the US airliner bombing over
Lockerbie.

"I don't think there is any chance of Gadaffi visiting Italy before that trial
is over and sanctions are permanently lifted," said an Italian official. "The US
and our other allies would see that as a step too far."

Mr D'Alema's visit symbolises Italy's strong interest in consolidating its
position as Libya's main trading partner.

The Italian government is keen for new contracts following the recent agreement
involving Italy's Eni to conclude a Dollars 5.5bn oil pipeline project
connecting Libya to Sicily.

However, the Italians face growing competition with the UK, France and Germany
to get a slice of Libyan trade, amid signs that the rise in the oil price will
boost Libyan GDP by 5 per cent next year.

Italy imports about half of Libya's petroleum production of 1.45m barrels a day.
Libya acquires machine tools, chemical products, pharmaceuticals and
agricultural produce from Italy.

Italian business leaders believe Libya will tender major infrastructure projects
in future years.

Tripoli is looking to extend a Dollars 30bn aqueduct project begun in the 1970s.
Libyan Arab Airlines, the national carrier, is looking to buy 20 new aircraft
and modernise its airport facilities.

Other projects that could be tendered include the building of a railway link to
Egypt.

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December 3, 1999, Friday USA Edition 1

SHORTS: Italian PM holds talks with Gadaffi

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 38 words

Italian PM holds talks with Gadaffi

Massimo D'Alema, Italy's prime minister, sought to boost trade links with Libya
by becoming the first western leader to meet Col Muammer Gadaffi in Tripoli in
seven years. Trade, Page 6

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December 3, 1999, Friday USA Edition 1

OBSERVER: Lost marbles OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 192 words

Lost marbles

World leaders seem to be ganging up on Britain in the long-running debate over
sending the Elgin Marbles back to Greece.

When Bill Clinton visited the Parthenon last month, he hinted that the treasures
should be returned. Yesterday was the turn of Italy's prime minister, Massimo
D'Alema.

D'Alema was talking in Libya, where he is the first western leader to visit
since UN sanctions were imposed in 1992. And he had some historical baggage of
his own to return to Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi.

The 2nd-century statue of Venus he carried was plundered from the ancient spa
town of Leptis Magna in 1940 by Italy's fascist governor of Libya, Italo Balbo,
and later presented to Nazi leader Hermann Goering as a keepsake. D'Alema
retrieved it from Berlin and handed it back to the Libyans.

D'Alema said there were countries in which "tricky negotiations" were going on
about booty plundered in the past - making clear that he had the Elgin Marbles
in mind. "The fact that Italy has sought to resolve this problem in this way is
a significant gesture of which our country can be proud," he said. Over to you,
Tony Blair . . .

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Financial Times (London,England)

December 2, 1999, Thursday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: Italian bid to cement friendship with Libya NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By JAMES BLITZ

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 135 words

DATELINE: ROME

Massimo D'Alema, Italy's prime minister, last night began an official two-day
visit to Libya, the first by a western leader since 1992. Mr D'Alema said that
his visit was aimed at "cementing the friendship" between Italy and Libya, and
hoped his country would represent "a bridge between Libya and Europe".

Mr D'Alema's visit marks the first significant step by a western state to bring
Libya in from the cold since Col Muammer Gaddafi surrendered two Libyans
suspected of the 1988 bombing of a Pan American airliner over Lockerbie,
Scotland, which killed 270 people. The visit also notches up another example of
a more confident foreign policy pursued by Italy, which has assumed the role of
Europe's interlocutor with isolated or "rogue" states in North Africa and the
Middle East. James Blitz, Rome

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 29, 1999, Monday Surveys WOR1

WORLD TRADE 2: Tentative embrace of the open market: THE EUROPEAN UNION by Guy
de Jonquie res: After several decades as a defensive laggard on liberalisation,
the EU's stance on trade is beginning to change as new attitudes have emerged
throughout the region

BYLINE: By GUY JONQUIERES DE

SECTION: WORLD TRADE 2; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 955 words

If a world trade round is launched in Seattle this week, the European Union - or
at least Sir Leon Brittan, its former trade commissioner - can claim some of the
credit. For more than three years until he stepped down this autumn, Sir Leon
travelled the world urging support for a "millennium" round.

His pioneering role is among the evidence held up by those in Brussels who say
the EU's stance on trade has been transformed during the 1990s. After decades as
a defensive laggard on liberalisation, they say, the EU is emerging as a
champion of open markets and multilateral rules.

The claim may be exaggerated, but it is not completely baseless. Fears of a
"Fortress Europe", which were common only a decade ago, have not materialised.
On the contrary, and in spite of years of anaemic growth and high unemployment
since then, more liberal attitudes have gained ground in the EU.

It has extended to trading partners unreservedly the benefits of its single
market programme. Hysterical fears of industrial domination by the US or Japan
have largely abated, and there have been signs of greater restraint in the use
of anti-dumping measures, the EU's favourite protectionist weapon.

The EU has even occasionally displayed a talent for statesmanship. The most
celebrated instance was three years ago, when it rescued WTO talks on freeing
trade in financial services by persuading other countries to keep their
negotiating offers on the table after the US walked out.

True, the EU's new-found liberalism has been flattered by the wavering of US
support of multilateralism - a trend of which Sir Leon never tired of
criticising, much to Washington's exasperation. But there is also reason to
think a long-term shift in European attitudes has occurred.

The EU's last enlargement expanded the ranks of governments favouring free
trade, while EU companies' incentive to lobby for protection has diminished as
they have shifted production abroad. Sir Leon shrewdly exploited these trends in
order to tilt the political balance towards his own liberal convictions.

One sign that change may be durable is the fact that Pascal Lamy, Sir Leon's
French socialist successor, has so far pursued much the same trade agenda and
insists that he is deeply committed to a comprehensive trade round.

Nonetheless, the EU still has a long way to go before it can win credentials as
a genuine free trader. A forthcoming study by Patrick Messerlin, a leading
French economist, estimates that trade protection of all kinds depresses the
EU's GDP by 6 to 7 per cent - as much as Spain's economic output.

The most egregious offender is the Common Agricultural Policy. Although Mr Lamy
says the EU is prepared to negotiate on agriculture in the WTO, sceptics suspect
its demands for a comprehensive trade round agenda are intended to thwart, not
promote, freer trade in the sector.

Nor are all observers convinced by signs that the EU's zeal for slapping
anti-dumping duties on unwelcome imports has abated. Some think companies simply
brought fewer dumping cases towards the end of Sir Leon's time in office,
because they suspected he would block them.

Meanwhile, the EU's serial defiance of WTO disputes rulings against it is hard
to reconcile with its professed commitment to multilateral leadership. Its
failure to comply with judgements against its banana import regime and ban on
hormone-treated beef has resulted in the WTO authorising US sanctions on several
hundred million dollars of EU exports.

As well as calling the WTO's authority into question, these incidents have
inflicted additional strains on the EU's trade relations with the US, just when
the success of the Seattle ministerial conference requires them to co-operate.

Mr Lamy has been quick to try to lower the transatlantic temperature. He says he
is determined to bring the EU quickly into compliance with its WTO obligations
and is seeking to narrow differences with the US on the agenda for a trade
round.

In contrast to Sir Leon, whose confrontational style irked US officials, Mr
Lamy's more emollient approach has gone down well in Washington. However, it is
still unclear how far improved diplomacy and personal chemistry can succeed in
preventing the trade conflicts that have periodically erupted between the US and
EU, threatening transatlantic relations and the multilateral system's stability.

Some conflicts stem from the coincidence of producer lobbying and domestic
politics. For instance, imminent elections caused US president Bill Clinton to
sign the Helms-Burton and Iran-Libya sanctions acts, much to the fury of the EU.

Many disputes over EU legislation, meanwhile, originate in flawed efforts to
complete its single market by harmonising national rules. In many cases, such as
bananas, audio-visual services and data protection, the price has been
compromises that have infuriated the US.

Both the EU Commission and President Clinton's administration insist that they
are committed to identifying and consulting each other on such problems before
they become confrontations.

But their success record so far has been mixed. Both sides have ignored their
declarations of good intentions when under domestic political pressure.
Furthermore, the Commission's room for manoeuvre depends on the assent of an
increasingly assertive European Parliament, just as US diplomacy has long had to
be tailored to the demands of Congress.

These institutional tensions on both sides of the Atlantic have often
intensified rivalries between the world's two largest trade powers. Keeping US
and EU trade relations on an even keel seems likely to remain a diplomatic
balancing act, whether or not a new global trade round is launched.

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November 24, 1999, Wednesday London Edition 1

INSIDE TRACK: Opening up the market of secrets: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
ENCRYPTION: Relaxed US rules on the export of coded products could spark a
scramble for software, writes Paul Talacko

BYLINE: By PAUL TALACKO

SECTION: INSIDE TRACK; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 987 words

Few computer-related issues inspire as much debate as encryption. On the one
hand, it is seen as essential to e-commerce and individual privacy and, on the
other, a way for terrorists, paedophiles, drug dealers and money launderers (the
so-called four horsemen of the infocalypse) to go about their business with
impunity.

For suppliers of encryption products, which allow data and communications to be
read only by the intended recipient, the next few months could be especially
challenging.

In mid-December, the US is expected to publish details of a new policy,
announced earlier this autumn, relaxing rules on the export of so-called
"strong" encryption products. It could herald a scramble for business between US
and non-US suppliers.

The US government has insisted for years that, for national security reasons,
strong encryption products could not be exported and should be classified as
weapons technology. The rules became increasingly controversial with the growth
of the internet and e-commerce. US vendors were banned from supplying
international customers with the most robust form of the technology, raising
concerns in the US that domestic suppliers would fall behind foreign competitors
in security technologies.

Then, the US announced in September that it was relaxing controls - just months
after it had been pressing other countries to adopt similar regulations.

The question is whether the US suppliers have lost too much ground to their
overseas counterparts. Companies such as Finnish-based Data Fellows have been
able to sell their products anywhere. In international markets, US companies
have been telling their customers that weak encryption is sufficient.

Some US vendors have been reluctant to develop one version of their technology
for domestic use and another, weaker version for foreign customers, and have
resigned themselves to selling the weaker version to all their customers. But,
as Jason Holloway, UK country manager for Data Fellows, puts it: "Weak
encryption is as good as no encryption at all."

Critics of the US export controls long argued that criminals and terrorists
could buy or download strong encryption technology from non-US sources. Several
non-US projects have produced free or "open source" software programmes such as
FreeS/WAN, OpenSSL and GNU Privacy Guard. Werner Koch, principal author of
Privacy Guard, says the US has probably already lost its lead in encryption
products. He says he is not aware of any significant free cryptographic software
produced in the US.

William Reinsch, US under-secretary of commerce for export administration,
disputes the charge that the US has lost ground, even though US industry had
been telling the administration that the export restrictions were having an
adverse effect.

Just as the restrictions were originally created for national security reasons,
so it is for these reasons that controls are being relaxed. "We decided we could
better maintain national security through a different approach," says Mr
Reinsch.

This includes educating law enforcement agencies in the use of technology and
using legislation to define rights.

Network Associates, the US company which sells a number of security products,
including the widely-used PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), was one business affected
by the restrictions.

Justin Greig, the company's major accounts technical manager for the UK, says
the export restrictions were particularly problematic with two product suites;
the VPN (virtual private network) suite which allows companies to communicate
across the public internet with the same security as if it were using a private
network, and an e-business suite for secure electronic transactions.

"It got to a ridiculous situation with the new VPN system. Colleagues in the US
could not talk to me about it. We could not offer support outside the US and
could not talk about individual problems," says Mr Greig. "If someone had PGP on
a notebook, did they have to uninstall the US version when they left the US and
install the international version?"

Because of a quirk in the regulations, the PGP Desktop suite, aimed at personal
users, could be exported from the US, as long as it was not in electronic form.
Network Associates printed the source code on to paper and then took it to
Switzerland where it was scanned back into a computer and the original program
recreated.

However, for more sophisticated products such as the VPN or e-business suite,
this was not going to be practical and US government lawyers indicated they
would not be happy with the practice.

Mr Greig is very upbeat about the lifting of export restrictions and says the
new development will assist his business. Data Fellows, too, is looking forward
to the relaxation of controls.

"The greatest concern has been the way these controls were holding back
e-business and e-commerce," says Mr Holloway. He is expecting the logjam built
up by the restrictions to be released with a flood of new business for those
selling encryption products.

The US had been forced to modify its stance over the last few months. First it
allowed US government employees to take encryption products out of the country,
then those working for US companies. The lifting of restrictions was the end of
a long process.

Some restrictions on the export from the US of strong encryption products will
remain. These will include post-export reporting, although there will be no
licensing requirement to export to the retail market for all countries other
than those deemed by the US to support terrorism (such as Iran, Iraq, Libya,
Yugoslavia and North Korea).

But Mr Reinsch has made it clear that the lifting of restrictions does not apply
to source code. This may have implications for any open source products or other
international development efforts, and suggests that development of open source
products will stay outside the US.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 23, 1999, Tuesday London Edition 1

NATIONAL NEWS: PC's family paid Pounds 250,000 NEWS DIGEST

BYLINE: By ANDREW PARKER

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 4

LENGTH: 111 words

LIBYA

PC's family paid Pounds 250,000

Libya has paid an estimated Pounds 250,000 to the family of WPC Yvonne Fletcher,
the police officer who died from gun shots fired from the Libyan embassy in
London in 1984. The 25-year-old constable had been policing a demonstration by
opponents of Colonel Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader. Britain restored
diplomatic relations with Libya in July after it accepted responsibility for the
killing, expressed regret and promised to pay compensation. Most sanctions have
been lifted against Libya, although an arms embargo remains in place. Britain is
to send a new ambassador to Tripoli next month. Andrew Parker

LOAD-DATE: November 23, 1999

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 23, 1999, Tuesday London Edition 2

COMPANIES & FINANCE: INTERNATIONAL: Merger of giants rewrites rules for the oil
business: Exxon's Dollars 80bn deal with Mobil will bring together two very
different corporate cultures, writes Hillary Durgin:

BYLINE: By HILLARY DURGIN

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 34

LENGTH: 1162 words

Exxon and Mobil caught the world off guard with the news that they were plotting
a merger to create the world's largest global energy company.

A year on, the deal few thought would happen has already changed strategic
thinking in the international oil business, even though it still awaits a
regulatory green light from the US Federal Trade Commission.

In combining the two largest US integrated oil companies, the Dollars 80bn deal
- first reported in the Financial Times - set a benchmark for the size and scale
of the top tier of the industry. Announced three months after the Dollars 57bn
BP-Amoco merger, the transaction confirmed the emergence of a new order of
mega-majors.

One of the main arguments used by Lee Raymond, Exxon chairman and CEO, to
justify the deal was that it would enhance the group's ability to secure
partnerships with national oil companies in the main oil-producing countries.

Some countries have built strong relationships with Mobil and like its
down-to-earth style. But they are worried about doing business with Exxon, which
tends to be more closed and secretive, as well as litigious when problems arise.
Exxon's treatment of the properties it inherits and its handling of
relationships in key countries will be vital to the merger's success.

Meanwhile, smaller rivals, including Conoco and Phillips Petroleum, are steering
clear of the mega-major model and resetting their own strategies, while
aggressive independents, including Apache and Anadarko Petroleum, believe they
can expand internationally in their own right.

Many smaller companies see opportunities to grow in the wake of the mega-merger
deals. Billions of dollars worth of properties are expected to flood the market
as the new groups rationalise their assets.

"It's going to continue to be companies emerging and adjusting and adapting to
this new reality. The question everywhere in the oil and gas industry is what
type of scale do you need in this new, competitive world economy?" said Daniel
Yergin, president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.

Last year's oil price collapse helped force combinations that many now believe
were inevitable. Growth is dependent on replacing production with new low-cost
oil and gas reserves. In the past three years, Exxon has lagged behind its
peers, maintaining an average of slightly more than 100 per cent of its
production. This was far below Conoco and Mobil, and even further below Royal
Dutch/Shell and YPF, which led the way in replacing gas production.

Mobil, however, had a poor record of replacing its gas production, with an
average of only 52 per cent. For years the company has sought new prospects to
replace the strong cash-flow from its giant Arun natural gas discovery in
Indonesia in 1971.

There is an argument that low oil prices provided cover for an Exxon-Mobil
combination that until recently would have been politically unthinkable. The
transaction reunites the two largest chunks of Standard Oil - Standard Oil of
New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York - which was dismantled by the US Supreme
Court in 1911.

The Exxon-Mobil deal creates a company with Dollars 164bn in revenues and the
equivalent of 21bn barrels of oil in proven reserves. It will also have enviable
positions in some of the world's most prolific oil basins, including offshore
West Africa and the Caspian Sea, as well as a strong position in natural gas
markets in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Based on oil reserves, the
new company will rank second after the BP Amoco/ Arco combination. In gas, it
will be second after Royal Dutch/Shell.

Even after disposals, which are likely to include filling stations in the
north-east of the US and possibly a refinery in California, the company would
also be the leading refiner and marketer in the world's largest market for
gasoline and transportation fuels.

In exploration and production, Exxon, which derives 44 per cent of its
production from North America, will benefit from Mobil's portfolio, which
generates two-thirds of its production from outside the region.

Just as BP Amoco cut its spending on exploration and production by about 45 per
cent following the merger, Exxon could cut about 25 per cent from its combined
exploration spending budget of about Dollars 9bn, according to CIBC Oppenheimer.

Exxon-Mobil will have a strong advantage in the competition to find overseas
partners. "A lot of countries are contemplating whether they should or shouldn't
invite in private capital," said Lawrence Goldstein, president of PIRA Energy
Group, a New York-based energy consulting firm. "Exxon and Mobil would be on
anybody's list of the top five. But Exxon-Mobil together clearly has to be
number one."

But the company faces strong competition from Europe. Three of the top four oil
companies - Royal Dutch/Shell, BP Amoco and TotalFina - which is in the throes
of merging with Elf Aquitaine - are European. Those companies have distinct
advantages in countries such as Iran and Libya, where US sanctions prevent
American oil companies from competing.

US oil companies, however, are likely to get a shot at any potential opening in
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia: "If they start just cracking the door, they're going to
give the Americans certain priority," said Vahan Zanoyan, president and chief
executive of Petroleum Finance Company, a Washington DC-based energy consulting
firm. But, he warned: "They're not going to make it just exclusively an American
welcome mat."

The spectre of competition for deals in such countries helps explain why the
Exxon-Mobil deal was done. In an era where delivering shareholder value is all
important, cost savings, along with the efficiencies and financial strength they
brings, were a principal goal.

Exxon is known in the industry as the best at getting the most for its money, so
it is not surprising it went after Mobil when it discovered Mobil was seeking
partners.

In the last three years, Exxon has delivered an average 15 per cent return on
capital, against an average 10 per cent among its peers and 12 per cent at
Mobil, according to CIBC Oppenheimer. "The company is by far the most
disciplined and shareholder-oriented company," said Bruce Lanni, oil analyst
with CIBC Oppenheimer. "It's a model which BP Amoco is trying to go after, as
well as Texaco and others."

Indeed, the annual cost savings Exxon will achieve from the merger are expected
to be far more than the Dollars 2.8bn it has estimated. Analysts say savings of
Dollars 4bn-Dollars 5bn are more likely.

But the new company will have to bridge cultural divides in everything it does,
from cutting costs to how it deals with outside partners. It must also come to
terms with Exxon's internal culture, which has been one that eschews outside
influence. It does not hire people in mid-career from outside its ranks or
employ external consultants other than in highly focused, technical areas.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 22, 1999, Monday Surveys TFI1

SURVEY - TURKEY: FINANCE & INDUSTRY: Disasters lead to building boom:
CONSTRUCTION by Leyla Boulton: Reconstruction and the aftermath of the
earthquakes will benefit a recession-hit industry dependent on exports

BYLINE: By LEYLA BOULTON

SECTION: SURVEY - TURKEY: FINANCE & INDUSTRY; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 829 words

The devastating earthquakes in August and earlier this month have cast a shadow
over the Turkish construction industry. Those companies that do not build homes
in Turkey have been quick to point this out.

Thousands died as a result of shoddily-built housing - triggering popular rage
against 'cowboy' contractors they accused of violating building regulations in
collusion with corrupt officials. The damage to factories in the industrial
heartland struck by the earthquakes was minimal in contrast.

Most homes and small businesses are not insured, whereas medium to large
companies have to meet strict standards set by insurers.

Even companies not in the housing market blame customers who wanted cheap rather
than less-affordable quality housing. "If you ask a tailor to make you a shirt
without buttons, you get what you pay for," says a construction industry boss.

Ilker Keremoglu, chief executive of STFA, a construction-based conglomerate not
involved in Turkish housing projects, believes the long-term effect of the
earthquakes will be to make more customers "differentiate between good companies
and not-so-good companies".

Others are not sure, arguing that Turks have short memories and tend to be
fatalistic about natural disasters.

Mr Keremoglu also complains, like the World Bank, that regulation of the
industry is virtually non-existent.

"In Turkey, anybody can be a self-employed contractor. You don't have any
obligations. You just decide to become a contractor and you become one," he
says. "It's obvious that many of these buildings which collapsed were not built
to standard."

The World Bank is demanding better enforcement of building regulations before it
disburses a Dollars 750m reconstruction loan. It has put the reconstruction bill
at between Dollars 3bn and Dollars 6.5bn.

The earthquakes have also come as a shot in the arm for construction companies
hit by recession at home and the financial crisis in Russia, the most important
foreign market for Turkish builders.

"The recession has hit the whole sector, but mainly government contracts," says
Mr Keremoglu. He refers not just to housing but to infrastructure projects such
as transport and energy.

These have been starved of foreign investment by Turkey's failure until now to
allow international arbitration in disputes with foreign investors in contracts
involving the public sector.

But parliament took an important first step to attracting more foreign
investment this summer when it amended the constitution to allow international
arbitration for such projects.

Enabling legislation to implement the constitutional amendment will be submitted
to parliament as soon as deputies approve the budget, expected by the end of the
year. When that occurs, John McCarthy of ING-Barings in Istanbul reckons that
Dollars 4bn a year should be available in foreign finance for Turkish
infrastructure projects.

The World Bank adds that Turkey can count on a post-disaster boom next year,
fuelled by the post-earthquake reconstruction effort to house the 500,000 people
left homeless.

With diversification the chosen means for coping with double-digit inflation and
political volatility, construction companies have spread themselves wide
geographically and sectorally.

Enka Holding, the country's biggest construction company, has built housing in
Russia and Libya. At home, it has shunned housing projects to concentrate on
building and operating power plants.

Its other interests include real estate, international trading and making and
selling furniture.

Sarik Tarik, Enka chairman, says the earthquakes do not affect its Dollars 4bn
investment programme with foreign partners in Turkey. This includes building two
power plants, which it will operate jointly with Intergen of the US, and a
bridge over Izmit Bay. All are in the earthquake zone.

By the time it finishes all three of its build-and-operate power plants - the
third is in Izmir, south of the earthquake zone - Enka will be responsible for
one-third of electricity-generating capacity in Europe's fastest-growing energy
market. Many companies have kept their construction arms private to minimise
exposure to shareholder pressure.

Mr Tara makes no secret of the fact that while Enka Holding is quoted on the
Istanbul Stock Exchange, it is by choice that Enka Inaat, the construction arm,
is not. "Everything depends on the political climate. Some years are up and some
are down. One year Russia is good and Turkey is bad. To balance everything is
not easy. One year we can pay a dividend and one year we can't."

Mr Keremoglu, recently arrived from the publicly-quoted Anadolu drinks- based
conglomerate to turn around privately-owned STFA, begs to differ.

"Maybe it is not usual to have publicly-owned construction companies but I would
challenge the notion it is not a good idea."

Insulation from shareholders only works, he says, if management is taking the
right decisions.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 15, 1999, Monday London Edition 1

FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS: Shell signs Iran oil development deal: Dollars
800m agreement defies threatened sanctions by US

BYLINE: By ROBIN ALLEN

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS; Pg. 29

LENGTH: 401 words

DATELINE: DUBAI

Royal Dutch/Shell yesterday signed an agreement with Iran's National Iranian Oil
Company (NIOC) in defiance of the threat of US sanctions against non-US oil
companies doing business in Iran.

The deal involves the development of two fields in the northern Gulf.

Phil Watts, a director, yesterday said he hoped it would secure Shell further
opportunities in Iran, where total oil reserves are estimated at about 93bn
barrels, 9 per cent of the global total. Shell is also tendering for onshore
work in Iran, as well as studying exploration possibilities in the Caspian Sea
with NIOC and Lasmo, of the UK.

Under the Dollars 800m (Pounds 490m) buy-back agreement, Shell's affiliate Shell
Exploration BV will develop the offshore Soroush and Nowruz fields, about 50
miles west of Kharg Island, Iran's loading terminal in the northern part of the
Gulf. Recoverable reserves are estimated to be 400m barrels at Soroush and 700m
at Nowruz.

Under the buy-back programme, foreign companies receive payment in crude oil to
bring the fields back into production, and then as profit on incremental crude
sales.

Both fields were badly damaged by Iraqi air attacks in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war. Both had been producing small amounts of about 25,000 barrels a day (b/d)
of heavy oil before the war. Soroush has been shut for almost 20 years.
Following NIOC repairs, Nowruz has been producing about 5,000 b/d since 1996.
According to analysts in Tehran, yesterday's agreement will be regarded as a
triumph by the government in its campaign to attract western companies into
Iran's upstream energy sector, in defiance of US sanctions.

Conoco was ordered to withdraw in 1995 from Iran's South Pars gas field, but
since then French and Canadian companies have struck deals. These have included
South Pars going to a consortium headed by France's TotalFina. Elf Aquitaine has
agreed to develop the offshore Doroud field, and Canada's Bow Valley the Balal
field, also offshore. TotalFina is also developing two offshore oil and gas
fields, Sirri blocks "A" and "E". , both offshore oil and gas.

US president Bill Clinton waived US sanctions on all three groups.

Under the Iranian provisions of the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, Washington
tries to stop non-US companies from investing more than Dollars 20m a year in
Iran's energy sector by threatening action against the companies' interests in
the US.

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Financial Times (London,England)

November 10, 1999, Wednesday London Edition 1

WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC: Aceh fighters test Wahid's grip

BYLINE: By DIARMID O'SULLIVAN

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 598 words

Abdullah Safi'i sat cross-legged on the floor of the remote Moslem school,
surrounded by a dozen well-armed men. As commander of separatist rebels in the
Indonesian province of Aceh, he dismissed any talk of negotiating peace with the
Indonesian government.

"Indonesia is not real. Indonesia does not exist," Mr Safi'i told reporters in a
village two hours' drive from the capital, Banda Aceh.

The idea of a country called Indonesia was created by Dutch colonialists, who
never managed to conquer Aceh fully, he said. "A free Aceh would be a monarchy,
like England. Aceh in the future will be like Aceh in the past."

This oil-rich province in the north-west of Indonesia forced its way to the top
of the central government's agenda this week after hundreds of thousands of
people gathered in Banda Aceh on Monday to demand a referendum on independence.

Aceh is seen by many as an important first test of the ability of the new
government of President Abdurrahman Wahid to maintain stability in the vast and
plural state. After East Timor's independence vote, many Indonesians felt the
floodgates would open and Aceh would be the first through.

Indonesia's parliament and the army have both called for President Wahid to take
immediate action to meet the demands of the Acehnese, which are fuelled largely
by human rights abuses at the hands of the Indonesian army.

Jakarta hopes to buy off the Acehnese with political autonomy and action to
investigate atrocities, because it fears that a referendum for Aceh might
precipitate the break-up of Indonesia as other disgruntled regions, such as
Irian Jaya and Ambon, demand their own vote.

Mr Wahid's new minister for human rights, an Acehnese called Hasballah Saad, was
reported as saying that the first five human rights abuse cases might be held
next week.

Mr Wahid was on his way back to Jakarta from a tour of Asian capitals yesterday
and is due to hold a cabinet meeting today. He repeated that he was willing to
allow the Acehnese to hold a referendum but has stopped short of committing
himself to one. Most of them would vote against independence, he said.

Every Acehnese spoken to by this reporter says the opposite, from university
lecturers to refugees fleeing army action in their villages.

"Wahid, in my opinion, is not president. He is a thief from the people of Aceh,"
said Mr Safi'i, who wore camouflage and clutched a Kalashnikov assault rifle
during his press conference. Small boys watched shyly.

The movement would struggle through "diplomacy, politics and law" to bring about
Aceh's independence, he said, asking the international community for help. The
referendum campaigners have given the government until December 4 to agree to a
ballot or face what they call "social revolution".

"I don't know what their ultimatum is. We fight for independence," said Mr
Safi'i, adding that the two groups were struggling for the same goal. He would
not say how many guerrillas his movement has, claiming that they were defending
themselves against Indonesia's army but not attacking.

One of his guerrillas said, however, that they regularly attacked Indonesian
army posts with machineguns and shoulder-held rocket launchers. Another said he
had been trained in Libya.

The few truckloads of Indonesian soldiers seen on the roads were driving at high
speed with their rifles pointing outwards. Local people said the army rarely
moves around except in large numbers. There is little information about the
military strength of the guerrillas but psychologically they appear to have the
upper hand.

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

October 29, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

Mezzanine debt fund established

BYLINE: By Richard Rivlin

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 249 words

A new fund is seeking to capitalise on a growing appetite among investors for
mezzanine debt - the layer between senior debt and equity in the financing of
many takeovers. Mezzanine Management, a specialist investment manager, has
launched a $ 500m (£300m) fund dedicated to such instruments.

The group, launched in 1988, recently closed Mezzanine Management Fund III after
raising more than $ 300m. It hopes to complete the new fund before the year-end.
This will invest in management buy-outs and buy-ins, corporate expansion,
public-to-private transactions and balance sheet refinancing.

Mezzanine Management has invested more than $ 750m in 43 companies, focusing on
manufacturing, business services, food and drink and printing and packaging
companies. Investments include BPC, the independent printing group that
subsequently merged with Watmoughs to create Polestar, and Core Laboratories, a
Dutch oil and gas analysis business. Mezzanine Management is believed to have
achieved a rate of return of more than 30 per cent.

Rory Brooks and James Read, the founding partners of Mezzanine Management, each
control 50 per cent. The fund is believed to be charging a management fee of
1.5-2 per cent. After setting a hurdle rate of 8 per cent, the executives within
Mezzanine will enjoy a 20 per cent carry ratio. This means that after achieving
an 8 per cent return, 20 per cent of all residual profits will go to Mezzanine
executives - industry standard within private equity.

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

October 21, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Domestic drama may spill on to world stage:
An act of defiance by the US Senate could return to haunt America
by rekindling the nuclear arms race

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 969 words

Eduard Shevardnadze was taken aback last week. Remember him? The former Soviet
foreign minister was being feted in Germany for his part in pulling down the
Berlin Wall 10 years ago. But no one thought to tell him that the US Senate had
refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty the night before. He was
obviously embarrassed.

Yet on reflection, this wise old diplomat, who has re-invented his career as
president of his native Georgia on Russia's war-torn southern frontier, was
sanguine.

True, he had fought hard for the CTBT in the days when he was a man of power in
Moscow. But he still thinks that today's world is a much better place than it
was.

"During the cold war, the world was actually terrorised by fear of a nuclear
nightmare," he said. "This was an absolutely realistic fear. That was why I
demanded a ban on testing. Unless we stopped the testing, we would not have been
able to stop the spread of nuclear weapons."

Today, Mr Shevardnadze seems to be a great deal more concerned with the lack of
leadership in neighbouring Russia, and the threat of ethnic conflict there, than
with any danger of global domination by America, the solitary superpower. No
doubt that is why nobody bothered to brief him on the vote.

Perhaps he is right. Wise heads in Washington also counsel against any
international overreaction. It was just about domestic politics, they say, with
the Republicans determined to humiliate Bill Clinton and his Democratic party,
as election fever starts to mount. Everyone else should ratify the treaty, and
the US will come round to it.

Only up to a point. For that vote had huge symbolic significance. It was the
most dramatic demonstration yet that the US agenda has parted company from that
of the rest of the world and of its closest allies.

The decision was taken in the face of a direct appeal in the columns of the New
York Times by Jacques Chirac of France, Britain's Tony Blair, and Gerhard
Schroder of Germany, virtually begging for ratification. It cut no ice. The vote
may have been more theatre than substance, but that drama could yet have a
serious effect on reality.

Let us first be quite clear what it did not mean. It was not a vote for American
isolationism. America is still engaged around the globe. But it was a blunt
statement of unilateralism: that US security is what matters most, and is best
ensured through unilateral action, not multilateral deals.

Nor does that mood simply reflect opinion on the right wing of the Republican
party. A vital reason for the negative vote, a devastating defeat for the
president, was the failure of the administration to try hard enough to win the
day. In stark contrast to the year-long lobbying which preceded Congress's
decision on Nato enlargement, this time the effort was feeble.

The trend to unilateralism runs deep. It has been there since Ronald Reagan's
Star Wars missile defence initiative in the 1980s. It was undoubtedly reinforced
by the end of the cold war balance-of-terror. Since then, America's irritation
with the pusillanimity of its allies in dealing with rogue regimes, such as
Iraq, Iran, Libya and Cuba, has made matters worse.

The vote caused surprise, alarm and despondency in Europe. After all, the CTBT
would have guaranteed American nuclear superiority for the foreseeable future.
The US played a vital role in establishing a global network of verification
sites. The Senate decision ran counter to literally decades of Washington
policy.

There is no such surprise in India, a prime target of the CTBT restrictions,
which defiantly went ahead with nuclear tests last year.

"Our conclusion is that every country - and especially the US - is looking to
its own national interest," says Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, director of the
Delhi-based Institute of Defence Studies. "Rather than moving towards greater
co-operation, the world is moving towards greater nationalism. India has gone
unilateral, too. And yes, this trend is negative."

In condemning the test ban treaty, he sounds rather like a Republican senator:
it is not comprehensive, it is not verifiable, and does not prevent sub-critical
testing. But then he adds a more fundamental criticism: "It is one more element
in non-proliferation without disarmament. The 1990s have been marked by a
complete lack of focus on disarmament." There lies the nub of the matter.

India, Pakistan and North Korea are the three nuclear-capable countries that
have refused to sign the CTBT. Russia, China, Iran and Israel have signed, but
not yet ratified. The chances of their doing so now are minimal.

The vote in Washington will have a clear knock-on effect. The conference next
year to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed by 187 states committed to
remain non-nuclear in perpetuity, is likely to see bitter recriminations against
the US. For a global test ban was part of that deal.

An international slanging match, with Washington the butt of criticism, is
likely to reinforce the unilateralist tendency there. And things can only get
worse.

President Clinton has promised to consider going ahead with a limited national
missile defence (NMD) system - a mini Star Wars system to protect against rogue
states - next summer, if it looks technically feasible. The pressure to do so
may prove irresistible.

If the US embarks on NMD, it will infuriate the Russians and the Chinese, and
privately appal the European allies. For it could well restart the whole nuclear
escalation process. A unilateralist Washington urgently needs a counter-balance
in the global strategic equation. China is one possibility. Far more reassuring
would be for the Europeans to develop a coherent independent defence capacity of
their own. Then they might at least be taken a bit more seriously in the Senate.

LOAD-DATE: October 21, 1999

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October 12, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 2

Pakistan bloodletting alarms many abroad:
Some fear a recent increase in sectarian murders reflects a role
in cross-border terror and 'political Islam', writes Farhan
Bokhari:

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 805 words

Last Thursday Aun Muhammad Rizvi, one of Pakistan's best known television
executives, opened the gate of his house in Rawalpindi, just outside Islamabad,
as one of his sons reversed his car out to take Mr Rizvi's 5-year-old daughter
to school. Two men on a motorcycle appeared from nowhere brandishing a handgun
and blew him away. One more victim of the holy war.

The killings of at least 30 people in the past two weeks, most of them, like Mr
Rizvi, Shia Moslems, marks the latest episode in a bloody saga of sectarian
strife after a five-month lull.

It is also making it more difficult for the country's ruling establishment to
convince the outside world that Pakistan, created in the name of Islam more than
five decades ago, is not fast emerging as an exporter of radical political
Islam.

While Pakistan's hardline Islamic groups may be fighting a turf battle at home,
many western diplomats are saying it is the kind of activism that does not end
at the border. The activism has become transnational, with groups openly
brandishing arms at public meetings and vowing to embrace the jihad (holy war)
in distant lands.

Concerns from officials in Moscow that extremist groups believed to be
responsible for a series of bomb blasts in Russia may be linked to groups in
Pakistan have shocked Pakistan's establishment, which denies any connection.

"Such wanton terrorist attacks destroying innocent lives should be condemned and
cannot be condoned on any ideological or religious grounds," the Pakistan
foreign ministry said recently.

Mainstream Islamic groups have also said that despite their yearning for a jihad
to combat anti-Islamic forces, they had no hand in the bombings in Russia.

However, western intelligence experts suspect religious militants have travelled
as far as Chechnya, the troubled Russian republic, to fight for what they
believe is a holy cause.

Igor Zubov, the Russian deputy interior minister said recently that
international extremist groups pledged at a meeting in Karachi, Pakistan's
business city, to give US$ 30m (£18m) to rebels in Dagestan, a largely Moslem
Russian territory. Pakistani officials deny the claim.

Western diplomats point to a recent trip to Washington by Lt Gen Khawaja
Ziauddin, Pakistan's chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the main spy
agency, once used by the west to channel funds to the anti-Soviet Afghan
resistance. They say terrorism must have been among issues discussed.

Security analysts warn that the fall-out threatens the country with pariah
status. "This controversy could further isolate Pakistan. It has to be tackled
in a way that clearly demonstrates we won't give sanctuary to any group involved
in terrorism, unless we want to risk becoming an Iraq or a Libya," said retired
Lt Gen Talat Masood, a respected commentator on security issues. "Political
Islam is becoming a major problem for us."

The country's main religious groups, which are also active in mainstream
politics, say such suggestions are part of a western effort to malign Islam: "We
are confronted by the Indian and the Zionist lobbies, which have created an
'Islamic bogey'," said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-I-islami, the main
religious political party. He added that events in Russia were the outcome of an
indigenous trend rather than a cross border one.

Tahirul Qadri, leader of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek, considered among the more
moderate Islamic groups, said: "In the west, the image of Islam is of those who
hold the holy Koran in one hand and a sword in the other. We believe in peaceful
and democratic traditions. We want peaceful co-existence with the west." But
senior officials and western diplomats say privately the problem is serious
enough that the government of prime minister Nawaz Sharif will have to do more
than issue denials.

They point to small Islamic groups of well armed, trained and experienced
fighters, who have seen action in neighbouring Afghanistan and, more recently,
Indian-administered Kashmir. Such fighters operate outside the control of Mr
Sharif's government, and have recently stepped up their public denunciations of
his regime.

Governments over the years have accepted the need to launch a national operation
to seize illegal arms as a first step to curbing the the militants. However,
each has backed off when faced with the prospect of an armed backlash and
widespread national unrest.

Mr Sharif has also been criticised by the relatively liberal opposition parties,
such as Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's party, for attempts to enforce the
Islamic shariah laws through the introduction of a constitutional amendment,
which they say would curtail personal freedom while giving a powerful message to
Islamic militant groups that their strong beliefs are gaining acceptability.

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October 11, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Taking on the giants:
PROFILE ARCHIE DUNHAM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CONOCO:
Carving out a niche in 'risky' countries is part of Dunham's
strategy to compete with the oil industry's super-majors, says
Hillary Durgin

SECTION: INSIDE TRACK; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 1177 words

The man who led the largest initial public offering in US history will not
define Conoco's strategy in any ordinary way.

A year after the $ 4.4bn offering, and two months after Conoco was completely
separated from DuPont to become the fifth-largest integrated oil company in the
US, Archie Dunham, its chief executive, is out to prove that being big is not
all that matters.

"Size is not the determining factor in greatness," says Mr Dunham, a former
Marine who joined Conoco 33 years ago. "It's having vision, being nimble, being
quick, being aggressive. Those are attributes of greatness and where we think we
can beat the majors."

Mr Dunham knows that, in arguing the case for Conoco's relevance to the world
oil industry, he is flouting conventional wisdom.

The logic behind the Exxon-Mobil and BP-Amoco mergers was that, in a world of
rising investment costs, excess production and falling oil prices, only those
that achieved big economies of scale would survive.

He must prove that Conoco can compete against the oil giants. And he must do so
in a world where succeeding as an oil executive means not only understanding
bottom-line calculations, but surviving the snakes and ladders of world oil
diplomacy.

Mr Dunham's first tenet is: "We don't have to be the size of a super-major to be
effective."

To illustrate his point, he describes a meeting with a representative from a
foreign government. The man approached him about an investment opportunity, and
emphasised he was not talking to Exxon, BP-Amoco, or Royal Dutch/Shell.

The envoy told him: "I don't want to do business with a company that has
revenues larger than the size of our gross national product."

Indeed, being a smaller company may be an advantage in countries that do not
like to be bullied, Mr Dunham says. He believes Conoco could carve out a niche
as an alternative partner and client to countries whose markets for oil have
narrowed with the mergers of Exxon and Mobil, and that of BP and Amoco.

"The mid-size companies are an important source of market power to the producing
countries," says Antonio Szabo, president of Stone Bond, a Houston-based energy
consulting firm.

It was his belief in Conoco's relevance that persuaded Mr Dunham to take the
company public.

"Conoco's timing appeared terrible," he now admits. Russia, where the company
has big investments, was reeling from the devaluation of the rouble in August,
capital markets were in turmoil, the price of oil was in the doldrums, and the
market for IPOs had all but dried up.

But it was a plan he had set his sights on soon after becoming Conoco's chief
executive three years ago. Initially, DuPont, which derived a steady flow of
income from Conoco, opposed the plan. Mr Dunham persevered. It was a lengthy and
delicate process that required the sensitive balancing of DuPont's interests and
the need to repel takeover efforts that could have derailed the IPO.

"He handles delicate situations very well," says Robert Israel, managing
director and head of the energy practice at Schroder & Co in New York, which
advised Conoco on going public.

The IPO was more than two-times oversubscribed and in August Conoco demerged
from DuPont. Mr Dunham's next goal is to reach a $ 30bn market value for Conoco
by 2003. It now stands at about $ 22bn.

Mr Dunham, who has tripled the company's earnings in the past six years by
restructuring its exploration and production, plans to achieve this by focusing
on growth.

Mr Dunham has scoured the globe for long-term investments. He led Conoco to
Russia, where it was the first US company to develop a new field. Conoco was
also the first company to have an integrated oil project in Venezuela and the
first to negotiate an agreement with Iran.

Those firsts have not come without mishaps. The company's Polar Lights venture
in Russia, now seven years old, is breaking even but it has to shoulder heavier
taxes every year.

The Venezuelan operation, in partnership with state-owned Petroleos de
Venezuela, has become another cause for concern following the political turmoil
unleashed by the election of Hugo Chavez as Venezuela's populist new president.

Patient diplomacy in Iran also fell foul of politics - this time, on Mr Dunham's
home turf. Four years ago, Conoco lost a $ 1bn contract to develop two offshore
oil fields in Iran after Bill Clinton, the US president, invoked economic
sanctions. The contract went to Total, the French oil company.

Despite those setbacks, Mr Dunham believes the rewards of investing in foreign
lands outweigh the risks. "In the long-term we want to be a much larger oil
company than we are today," he says. "We believe that if you're going to be that
kind of great company in 2025, you need to be in Russia, you need to be in
Venezuela, you need to be in the Middle East, and you need to be in South-east
Asia."

Conoco is establishing an office in Riyadh, an expensive endeavour and a symbol
of commitment to any potential opening of the Saudi Arabian energy sector. Mr
Dunham visits Iran regularly to maintain his relationships with leaders there.
He recently won approval from the US government to travel to Libya to assess
large holdings Conoco had to relinquish after US sanctions were imposed in 1986.

"That is evidence of forward thinking," Mr Israel says. "We don't do business
with some of these countries right now."

Mr Dunham also wants to shift the company's asset mix from refining and
marketing to exploration and development, and he wants the company's portfolio
of investments to be weighted increasingly towards gas rather than oil.

All that has to be accomplished while steering the independent oil producer in
an industry whose structure has changed dramatically in the past year. That
includes positioning Conoco clearly as a strong participant and partner to
oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela; being active in the
mergers and acquisitions arena; and getting the company's share price moving
upward.

To achieve this he is following a simple premise he learned in the Marines:
"Planning prevents poor performance."

But will this be enough? Analysts say Conoco has a strong portfolio of
international oil and gas assets. But meeting a target of expanding production
by 4 to 5 per cent a year after 2001 will depend on acquisitions and luck in its
exploration activities.

"The critical issue for Conoco right now is that it appears that they cannot
meet their stated production goals without an acquisition," says Michael Young,
oil analyst with Deutsche Bank Alex Brown in Boston.

What no one doubts is Mr Dunham's competence. In the six years since he took
charge of Conoco's exploration and production business, the company has risen
from the bottom to the top of Schroder & Co's ranking for best exploration and
production performers. And then he pulled off a public offering that many in the
industry thought would be a dud. "He has overcome significant odds to still be
standing - that is no small feat," says an industry executive.

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October 9, 1999, Saturday USA EDITION 1

Airbus Industrie signals possible deal with Libya

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 37 words

Airbus Industrie signals possible deal with Libya

Airbus Industrie, the European manufacturing consortium, said Libya had
expressed an interest in acquiring up to 24 aircraft but no agreement had been
signed. Page 2

LOAD-DATE: October 09, 1999

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October 9, 1999, Saturday USA EDITION 1

Libya may buy 24 aircraft
NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 107 words

DATELINE: London

AIRBUS INDUSTRIE APPROACHED

Libya may buy 24 aircraft

Airbus Industrie said yesterday Libya had expressed an interest in acquiring up
to 24 aircraft but no agreement had been signed. The European manufacturing
consortium said Libya was interested in buying both narrow and wide-bodied
aircraft.

However, Airbus denied reports that a deal had been finalised. "There's no
contract," Airbus said.

Libyan Airlines has been keen to resume international operations following the
lifting of sanctions in April.

The airline made its first scheduled overseas flight to Amman soon after
sanctions were lifted. Michael Skapinker, London

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October 8, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 2

Business mission to Libya receives a 'fair wind'

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo and Andrew Parker in London

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 07

LENGTH: 265 words

DATELINE: London

British businessmen yesterday concluded the largest UK trade mission to Libya
since diplomatic relations started to recover after a 15-year stand-off.

The government is keen to normalise dealings with Libya since full diplomatic
relations, broken off after the killing of a policewoman, were restored in July.
British Trade International, the UK's trade promotion body, said it gave the
mission a "fair wind".

The four-day mission was organised by Surrey-based International Trade and
Investment Missions, whose chairman is Jeremy Hanley, a former Conservative
minister at the Foreign Office. Other directors include Tony Baldry, another
former Tory minister.

Sir Alan Munro, an ITIM director, said the mission had been backed by the
Foreign Office and Department of Trade and Industry, although no financial
assistance was provided.

He said there were substantial opportunities for UK companies in Libya because
of the historic ties between the two countries.

The United Nations suspended most of its sanctions against Libya in April after
the country handed over two suspects accused of organising the 1988 bombing of a
Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie. However, a European Union embargo on arms sales
to Libya remains.

The UK restored diplomatic relations after Libya accepted responsibility for the
shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.

A DTI spokesman said: "The DTI, in line with government policy of normalising
relations with Libya, would encourage the right kind of investment. The two
obvious areas are oil and aviation."

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October 7, 1999, Thursday Surveys FTX1

SURVEY - FT EXPORTER: Opportunities for trade and investment open up: LIBYA by
Mark Huband: Relaxation of sanctions is enticing new investors to Libya's shores
in search of new projects, particularly in infrastructure, tourism and the oil
industry

BYLINE: By MARK HUBAND

SECTION: SURVEY - FT EXPORTER; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 799 words

The removal of UN sanctions on Libya paves the way for foreign companies to seek
major stakes in Libya's projected 2001-2005 investment strategy, which the
government expects will require finance of about Dollars 35bn.

UN sanctions, imposed in 1992 and tightened in 1993, were introduced to force
Libya to hand over for trial two men accused of masterminding the bombing of a
US passenger airliner over Scotland in 1988. The sanctions entailed the freezing
of Libyan assets held abroad, with the exception of oil and gas earnings, and
banned the sale to Libya of equipment for use in downstream oil and gas sector
operations. The sanctions also imposed a ban on flights to and from Libya, and
led to the suspension of operations by Libyan Arab Airlines, the national
carrier.

Since the men were surrendered for trial in April, Libya has moved rapidly to
end its international political and economic isolation. The effect of the
sanctions on Libyan trade was limited, largely owing to the exemption of
hydrocarbon earnings from the sanctions regime. Consequently, trade has remained
consistent throughout the past seven years. Libyan Imports in the first nine
months of 1998, the latest for which figures are available, stood at Dollars
3.74bn.

Now, partly in gratitude for political support offered to Libya during the
period of sanctions, Libya is keen to strengthen trading ties with sub-Saharan
African countries. However, Italy remains Libya's biggest trading partner, with
oil imports of about Dollars 13m annually, followed by Belgium and Spain.
Italian exports to Libya have remained at about Dollars 84m annually, with goods
ranging from food to scientific instruments. German exports, as varied in range,
have consistently been valued at about Dollars 50m a year.

Major foreign companies are now seeking to secure contracts for the wide range
of infrastructure projects Libya is keen to launch following the end of the
sanctions.

British Aerospace of the UK has been in protracted discussions with Libya, in
the hope of securing a Dollars 9.6bn deal to refurbish Libyan Arab Airlines'
fleet by providing new aircraft, as well as training pilots and technicians and
reconstructing airports.

Libyan plans to build a new 2,178km railway the length of its coastline and
inland are expected to lead to contracts worth Dollars 4bn, while the upgrading
of port facilities is also a probable area in which foreign companies will play
a big role. The air embargo led to Libya greatly expanding its port facilities,
to a point where the country can currently handle 15m tonnes of cargo per year
at 71 docks along its 2000km coast.

Libya's economic growth has been influenced strongly by falling oil prices, with
oil revenues in 1999 expected to be down 24 per cent on 1998.

Even so, government figures show the hydrocarbons sector contributing 22.9 per
cent of GDP in 1997, a 40 per cent drop since 1980.

But oil accounts for 95 per cent of foreign earnings and 50 per cent of
government receipts. While the government had based its 1999 budget on an oil
price of Dollars 18 per barrel, receipts have been down 35 per cent, equivalent
to Dollars 11.7 per barrel.

European oil companies have accelerated investments in Libya ever since the US
government abandoned plans in May 1998 to fine any foreign companies investing
more than Dollars 40m annually in either Libya or Iran.

With European oil companies well established in the country, US companies are
now determined to resume their presence in Libya. This was halted in 1986 when
US unilateral sanctions which are still in force were imposed, forcing five
major US companies to abandon up to Dollars 2bn-worth of fixed assets and
forfeit business worth up to Dollars 2.1bn annually.

Libya has said their assets will be returned to the companies when they resume
operations in the country.

Growing European demand for Libyan oil, which currently stands at 1m barrels per
day, as well as gas, has intensified the US companies' determination to return.

Oil price fluctuations have allowed Libya to limit the impact of sanctions on
its economy. But it now faces 30 per cent unemployment, 25 per cent inflation
and the burden of a state sector which employs 700,000 people, or 20 per cent of
the population.

Observance of the sanctions regime has meanwhile greatly diminished detailed
knowledge of what potential exists outside the major infrastructure and
hydrocarbons-related projects which are the priority of the government.

Much of the anticipated Dollars 35bn that the government intends to see invested
by 2005, will be directed towards tourism projects, with the emphasis on
starting and upgrading beachside tourist facilities. Foreign expertise is
expected to play a pivotal role in these projects.

LOAD-DATE: November 8, 1999

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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1358 of 2746 DOCUMENTS

Financial Times (London,England)

October 7, 1999, Thursday Surveys FTX1

SURVEY - FT EXPORTER: Opportunities for trade and investment open up: LIBYA by
Mark Huband: Relaxation of sanctions is enticing new investors to Libya's shores
in search of new projects, particularly in infrastructure, tourism and the oil
industry

BYLINE: By MARK HUBAND

SECTION: SURVEY - FT EXPORTER; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 799 words

The removal of UN sanctions on Libya paves the way for foreign companies to seek
major stakes in Libya's projected 2001-2005 investment strategy, which the
government expects will require finance of about Dollars 35bn.

UN sanctions, imposed in 1992 and tightened in 1993, were introduced to force
Libya to hand over for trial two men accused of masterminding the bombing of a
US passenger airliner over Scotland in 1988. The sanctions entailed the freezing
of Libyan assets held abroad, with the exception of oil and gas earnings, and
banned the sale to Libya of equipment for use in downstream oil and gas sector
operations. The sanctions also imposed a ban on flights to and from Libya, and
led to the suspension of operations by Libyan Arab Airlines, the national
carrier.

Since the men were surrendered for trial in April, Libya has moved rapidly to
end its international political and economic isolation. The effect of the
sanctions on Libyan trade was limited, largely owing to the exemption of
hydrocarbon earnings from the sanctions regime. Consequently, trade has remained
consistent throughout the past seven years. Libyan Imports in the first nine
months of 1998, the latest for which figures are available, stood at Dollars
3.74bn.

Now, partly in gratitude for political support offered to Libya during the
period of sanctions, Libya is keen to strengthen trading ties with sub-Saharan
African countries. However, Italy remains Libya's biggest trading partner, with
oil imports of about Dollars 13m annually, followed by Belgium and Spain.
Italian exports to Libya have remained at about Dollars 84m annually, with goods
ranging from food to scientific instruments. German exports, as varied in range,
have consistently been valued at about Dollars 50m a year.

Major foreign companies are now seeking to secure contracts for the wide range
of infrastructure projects Libya is keen to launch following the end of the
sanctions.

British Aerospace of the UK has been in protracted discussions with Libya, in
the hope of securing a Dollars 9.6bn deal to refurbish Libyan Arab Airlines'
fleet by providing new aircraft, as well as training pilots and technicians and
reconstructing airports.

Libyan plans to build a new 2,178km railway the length of its coastline and
inland are expected to lead to contracts worth Dollars 4bn, while the upgrading
of port facilities is also a probable area in which foreign companies will play
a big role. The air embargo led to Libya greatly expanding its port facilities,
to a point where the country can currently handle 15m tonnes of cargo per year
at 71 docks along its 2000km coast.

Libya's economic growth has been influenced strongly by falling oil prices, with
oil revenues in 1999 expected to be down 24 per cent on 1998.

Even so, government figures show the hydrocarbons sector contributing 22.9 per
cent of GDP in 1997, a 40 per cent drop since 1980.

But oil accounts for 95 per cent of foreign earnings and 50 per cent of
government receipts. While the government had based its 1999 budget on an oil
price of Dollars 18 per barrel, receipts have been down 35 per cent, equivalent
to Dollars 11.7 per barrel.

European oil companies have accelerated investments in Libya ever since the US
government abandoned plans in May 1998 to fine any foreign companies investing
more than Dollars 40m annually in either Libya or Iran.

With European oil companies well established in the country, US companies are
now determined to resume their presence in Libya. This was halted in 1986 when
US unilateral sanctions which are still in force were imposed, forcing five
major US companies to abandon up to Dollars 2bn-worth of fixed assets and
forfeit business worth up to Dollars 2.1bn annually.

Libya has said their assets will be returned to the companies when they resume
operations in the country.

Growing European demand for Libyan oil, which currently stands at 1m barrels per
day, as well as gas, has intensified the US companies' determination to return.

Oil price fluctuations have allowed Libya to limit the impact of sanctions on
its economy. But it now faces 30 per cent unemployment, 25 per cent inflation
and the burden of a state sector which employs 700,000 people, or 20 per cent of
the population.

Observance of the sanctions regime has meanwhile greatly diminished detailed
knowledge of what potential exists outside the major infrastructure and
hydrocarbons-related projects which are the priority of the government.

Much of the anticipated Dollars 35bn that the government intends to see invested
by 2005, will be directed towards tourism projects, with the emphasis on
starting and upgrading beachside tourist facilities. Foreign expertise is
expected to play a pivotal role in these projects.

LOAD-DATE: November 8, 1999

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

October 7, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 1

Trade mission to Libya

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 30 words

Trade mission to Libya

Senior UK-based executives from 37 companies will complete the biggest UK trade
mission to Libya since the suspension of UN sanctions. Britain, Page 9

LOAD-DATE: October 07, 1999

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October 7, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 1

Trade mission seeks deals in post-sanctions Libya
UNITED NATIONS CURBS SUSPENDED EXECUTIVES FROM 37 COMPANIES
CONCLUDE BIGGEST VISIT SINCE LIFTING OF RESTRICTION:

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: UK; Pg. 09

LENGTH: 359 words

DATELINE: Cairo

Senior UK-based executives from 37 companies will today complete the biggest UK
trade mission to Libya since the suspension of United Nations sanctions.

The four-day Libyan British Trade and Investment Mission was held with the
approval of the UK Foreign Office and trade ministry.

Banking, engineering, oil and construction companies are seeking contracts in
Libya's planned $ 35bn post-sanctions investment plan, due to run from
2001-2005. The UK Committee for Middle East Trade - a body of industrialists and
officials that advises the UK government - intends to create a permanent UK-
Libya business council.

Some analysts predict that Libya plans to seek as much as $ 45bn in investment
during this period. The government has said it will invest $ 20bn in sectors
including infrastructure, tourism and oil in partnership with Libyan and foreign
private sector investors.

Investment in the oil and gas sectors - which currently accounts for 50 per cent
of government revenue and 95 per cent of export earnings - is expected to be the
stimulus for investment in other areas. UK oil companies with no previous
experience in Libya are eager to establish ties prior to an expected lifting of
US sanctions imposed on Libya in 1986.

"At the moment we are not looking for specific business, and it's very much an
exploratory trip. But when the US comes in it will lead to an increase in
competition and will tend to lead to a tightening of terms," said John Shute,
general manager for new business at Enterprise Oil, the former oil exploration
arm of the state-owned British Gas. UN sanctions barred investment in downstream
oil and gas projects while allowing Libya access to income from oil and gas
sales.

"It won't be easy to encourage people to come and invest except in oil and gas;
outside those sectors I think the Libyans are at a loss," said George Asseily,
senior director of Schroder Asseily bankers. "I don't think there's any clear
policy in relation to how, what and where investment is to be directed. We
haven't had straight answers to our questions as to which industries are
favoured outside the hydrocarbons sector."

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October 7, 1999, Thursday SURVEY EDITION 1

Opportunities for trade and investment open up:
LIBYA by Mark Huband:
Relaxation of sanctions is enticing new investors to Libya's
shores in search of new projects, particularly in infrastructure,
tourism and the oil industry

BYLINE: by Mark Huband

SECTION: SURVEY - FT EXPORTER; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 786 words

The removal of UN sanctions on Libya paves the way for foreign companies to seek
major stakes in Libya's projected 2001-2005 investment strategy, which the
government expects will require finance of about $ 35bn.

UN sanctions, imposed in 1992 and tightened in 1993, were introduced to force
Libya to hand over for trial two men accused of masterminding the bombing of a
US passenger airliner over Scotland in 1988. The sanctions entailed the freezing
of Libyan assets held abroad, with the exception of oil and gas earnings, and
banned the sale to Libya of equipment for use in downstream oil and gas sector
operations. The sanctions also imposed a ban on flights to and from Libya, and
led to the suspension of operations by Libyan Arab Airlines, the national
carrier.

Since the men were surrendered for trial in April, Libya has moved rapidly to
end its international political and economic isolation. The effect of the
sanctions on Libyan trade was limited, largely owing to the exemption of
hydrocarbon earnings from the sanctions regime. Consequently, trade has remained
consistent throughout the past seven years. Libyan Imports in the first nine
months of 1998, the latest for which figures are available, stood at $ 3.74bn.

Now, partly in gratitude for political support offered to Libya during the
period of sanctions, Libya is keen to strengthen trading ties with sub-Saharan
African countries. However, Italy remains Libya's biggest trading partner, with
oil imports of about $ 13m annually, followed by Belgium and Spain. Italian
exports to Libya have remained at about $ 84m annually, with goods ranging from
food to scientific instruments. German exports, as varied in range, have
consistently been valued at about $ 50m a year.

Major foreign companies are now seeking to secure contracts for the wide range
of infrastructure projects Libya is keen to launch following the end of the
sanctions.

British Aerospace of the UK has been in protracted discussions with Libya, in
the hope of securing a $ 9.6bn deal to refurbish Libyan Arab Airlines' fleet by
providing new aircraft, as well as training pilots and technicians and
reconstructing airports.

Libyan plans to build a new 2,178km railway the length of its coastline and
inland are expected to lead to contracts worth $ 4bn, while the upgrading of
port facilities is also a probable area in which foreign companies will play a
big role. The air embargo led to Libya greatly expanding its port facilities, to
a point where the country can currently handle 15m tonnes of cargo per year at
71 docks along its 2000km coast.

Libya's economic growth has been influenced strongly by falling oil prices, with
oil revenues in 1999 expected to be down 24 per cent on 1998.

Even so, government figures show the hydrocarbons sector contributing 22.9 per
cent of GDP in 1997, a 40 per cent drop since 1980.

But oil accounts for 95 per cent of foreign earnings and 50 per cent of
government receipts. While the government had based its 1999 budget on an oil
price of $ 18 per barrel, receipts have been down 35 per cent, equivalent to $
11.7 per barrel.

European oil companies have accelerated investments in Libya ever since the US
government abandoned plans in May 1998 to fine any foreign companies investing
more than $ 40m annually in either Libya or Iran.

With European oil companies well established in the country, US companies are
now determined to resume their presence in Libya. This was halted in 1986 when
US unilateral sanctions which are still in force were imposed, forcing five
major US companies to abandon up to $ 2bn-worth of fixed assets and forfeit
business worth up to $ 2.1bn annually.

Libya has said their assets will be returned to the companies when they resume
operations in the country.

Growing European demand for Libyan oil, which currently stands at 1m barrels per
day, as well as gas, has intensified the US companies' determination to return.

Oil price fluctuations have allowed Libya to limit the impact of sanctions on
its economy. But it now faces 30 per cent unemployment, 25 per cent inflation
and the burden of a state sector which employs 700,000 people, or 20 per cent of
the population.

Observance of the sanctions regime has meanwhile greatly diminished detailed
knowledge of what potential exists outside the major infrastructure and
hydrocarbons-related projects which are the priority of the government.

Much of the anticipated $ 35bn that the government intends to see invested by
2005, will be directed towards tourism projects, with the emphasis on starting
and upgrading beachside tourist facilities. Foreign expertise is expected to
play a pivotal role in these projects.

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October 6, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 2

New Eni chairman appointed

BYLINE: By Paul Betts in Rome

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: EUROPE; Pg. 34

LENGTH: 332 words

DATELINE: Rome

The Italian government acted quickly yesterday to resolve the power vacuum at
the top of Eni, the oil group 36 per cent owned by the Treasury, appointing
Gianmaria Gros-Pietro chairman.

Mr Gros-Pietro, chairman of Iri, the state-owned industrial holding company,
will replace Renato Ruggiero, former director-general of the World Trade
Organisation, who quit last week after barely four months as chairman.

Mr Ruggiero resigned after failing to secure greater executive responsibility
for the oil group's international strategy. His departure embarrassed the
government, currently under siege by minority shareholders and international
funds over the controversial restructuring of Telecom Italia, the
telecommunications group.

Vittorio Mincato, Eni's chief executive, yesterday denied reports of a power
struggle with Mr Ruggiero. He said the company's statutes clearly gave all
executive powers to the chief executive. The board unanimously reconfirmed those
statutes last week.

Mr Gros-Pietro, a distinguished economist known for his conciliatory style, has
virtually completed the task of dismantling Iri. Its last remaining holdings are
due to be privatised in the next 12 months. Piero Gnutti, a business consultant
and former Eni board member, is expected to replace Mr Gros-Pietro at Iri.

The rapid resolution of the Eni senior management conflict is expected to free
Mr Mincato's hand to develop his three-legged strategy for the group. Mr Mincato
wants to expand the hydrocarbon operations by building up reserves through
acquisitions.

Expanding the group's presence in the electricity generating market was the
second leg of his growth strategy.

The third leg involves expanding the company's gas distribution business outside
Italy to compensate for the loss of its near-monopoly in the domestic market
following liberalisation next year.

The company's recent $ 5bn agreement with Libya would strengthen its gas
distribution activities in Europe, he added.

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October 6, 1999, Wednesday SURVEY EDITION 2

Mid-Med goes international:
BANKING by James Blitz:
The acquisition by HSBC of 67.1 per cent of the former
state-owned bank has given it a leading position in the Maltese
market

BYLINE: by James Blitz

SECTION: SURVEY - MALTA; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 690 words

For Malta's business community, the most important event of this year has been
the purchase of Mid-Med Bank by Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
(HSBC).

For decades, state-owned Mid-Med has been one of the leading commercial banking
groups on the island, with operations on a scale that only Bank of Valletta can
come close to matching.

HSBC's acquisition of the government's 67.1 per cent stake in Mid-Med in June
for LM80m has now given the international bank a leading position in the Maltese
market.

In the wake of the sale, there was considerable disquiet in opposition circles
about the way that Mid-Med had been sold.

Alfred Sant, the Labour leader, accused finance minister John Dalli of selling
Mid-Med at too low a price, and conducting the sale in a completely
untransparent way with no formal tender to international groups.

Mr Sant says that, if Labour is returned to office, HSBC could be forced to
reduce its stake to about 40 per cent on antitrust grounds, insisting that an
element of competition must be preserved in the domestic banking market.

In recent weeks, the controversy over the sale has subsided. Senior government
figures say they are confident of rebutting any further accusations from Labour
about the way that Mid-Med was sold. And Tom Robson, chief executive, is now
turning his attention to what the new group - soon to be renamed HSBC Bank Malta
- can achieve.

According to Mr Robson, HSBC's decision to come to the island is a vote of
confidence in its economic future. "There is a raft of opportunties here. The
strategy of our group has always been to try and spot opportunities in the
region early and to set up operations in a place which we think will develop. We
never go in for a short sprint, always for the long haul."

There are two lines of business HSBC is keen to develop. The first is in the
realm of private wealth management.

Mr Robson does not go into detail about how much private wealth he believes
there is in Malta.

But informed goverment officials suggest there are about LM2bn deposited
overseas in places such as the UK and Channel islands and a further LM2bn on the
island itself.

In recent weeks, Barclays Offshore Capital has opened a representative office on
the island in a further sign of the interest in managing such deposits.

Moreover, bank deposits have risen sharply in Malta, and there has been a sharp
increase in the island's savings rate from 12 per cent to 15 per cent during the
past three years. "We want to offer people the full range of HSBC products,"
says Mr Robson.

The second area of strategy is on the corporate finance side. Here, he believes,
Malta is set to offer an interesting series of opportunities. The government has
introduced a series of flotations in recent years (of which the sale of Mid-Med
was the most significant).

Other state bodies now set to be sold off include Malta's international airport,
the state lottery, its water sev ices and Enemalta, the energy agency. HSBC,
like other banks, could bid to advise the government on these sales.

Mr Robson is inevitably turning his mind to a third important opportunity, the
possibility for HSBC to use Malta as a stepping stone to develop links with
North Africa, and, in particular, Libya, where United Nations sanctions have
recently been lifted following the handover of two Libyan suspects allegedly
involved in the Lockerbie aircraft bombing.

He is showing some interest in the possibility of developing links with Libya
and is sending members of staff on a fact-finding mission to Tripoli this month.

Developing HSBC's position on the island will not be a straightforward task.
Mid-Med has roughly the same number of outlets as Bank of Valletta. But Mr
Robson believes Mid-Med's rival has considerably improved its operations in
recent years and is not an easy rival to beat.

Nevertheless, HSBC will certainly be at the centre of attention in Malta for
much of the rest of this year. One of the biggest issues on the government's
mind is whether HSBC will consider using Malta as the base for a new call-centre
for its operations.

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September 30, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 2

Oil groups to check properties in Libya

BYLINE: By Hillary Durgin in Houston

SECTION: US AND CANADA; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 380 words

DATELINE: Houston

A consortium of US oil companies has received permission from the US government
to travel to Libya and inspect properties they relinquished 13 years ago after
the imposition of sanctions against the Tripoli government.

The permit, which was issued to Oasis, a company comprising Amerada Hess, Conoco
and Marathon Oil, is seen by some as a small step in the possible easing of the
sanctions and the return by US companies to doing business with Libya. US energy
companies have complained that sanctions have cost them a competitive edge in
the oil nations in the Middle East, including Iran.

"It's obviously a small step - it's not the same as being able to do business
there again," said Richard Haass, director of foreign policy studies at the
Brookings Institute in Washington DC. "It suggests that the US government might
be prepared to ease sanctions parallel to Libya co-operating with the Pan Am 103
trial and improving its behaviour."

The United Nations Security Council lifted sanctions against Libya in April, a
year after Col Muammer Gadaffi surrendered the two Libyans charged in connection
with the bombing of the flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. That has
resulted in a flurry of interest in renewed foreign investment in Libya.

But the US sanctions, which were implemented in 1986 after several terrorist
attacks involving US interests and Libyan nationals and ban trade between US
companies and Libya, remain intact.

Conoco, which has been adamantly opposed to US sanctions policies, remained
cautious. "This is one trip to inspect our assets that we left behind in 1986,"
said Carlton Adams, a Conoco spokesman.

"We can do, will do, no new business discussions, and it certainly does not
signify a change in US policy."

Occidental Petroleum has received a similar permit.

Conoco, based in Houston, will travel to Libya to evaluate the properties, which
are now owned and operated by the National Oil Company of Libya, its former
partner. At the time the companies left, the properties were producing 400,000
barrels of oil per day.

The Oasis partnership has had standstill agreements with the Libyan national oil
company that outline conditions under which the companies could return to their
properties if sanctions are lifted.

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September 9, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 2

African unity

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 429 words

If Africa were to choose a leader to help resolve its problems, Libya's Muammer
Gadaffi, as dangerous as he is eccentric, would seem a most inappropriate
choice. Unless, that is, this poacher turns out to be gamekeeper.

Mr Gadaffi has initiated and is hosting the special summit of the Organisation
of African Unity (OAU). One motive behind the meeting, which coincides with the
30th anniversary of Libya's revolution, is public relations. But it may also
serve a deeper purpose. Mr Gadaffi has made two critical issues the subject of
debate: conflict resolution in Africa, and the need for the continent to come to
grips with the challenges of the globalised world economy. It can only do this
by increasing regional co-operation and ending trade barriers, with the ultimate
objective of political unity, he argues.

It is a vision first set out in the 1950s by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first prime
minister. It proved a fantasy as Africa's post- independence generation of
leaders, including Mr Nkrumah, mismanaged its economies. Today the target set by
the OAU at the Abuja summit in 1991 of economic integration by 2025 remains a
mirage.

If the vision is to become a reality, Africa needs to end devastating wars that
wrack the continent. During much of the last 30 years, Mr Gaddafi, notorious for
his involvement in terrorism, has played a largely destructive role. But he has
also provided military and financial assistance to causes that are now
respectable - the African National Congress in South Africa, liberation wars in
southern Africa. Their leaders remain grateful, and the rest of Africa respects
him for it.

Mr Gadaffi is thus in a unique position to intervene in the region's conflicts.
Even though only about half of the expected 46 African heads of state showed up,
he was able to obtain the presence of some critical players.

They include the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea, whose border war has cost tens
of thousands of lives in the past year. Congo's president Laurent Kabila and the
presidents of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Namibia, all of whom have troops in
Congo, were also present, as well as South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki.

Mr Gadaffi is well qualified to knock the protagonists' heads together. If he
puts as much effort into ending conflicts as he has done in fuelling them,
progress might just be possible. This would be the best way to win international
respectability for Libya. He has the incentive. He has the means. And even if
his efforts disappoint, it is better to have Mr Gadaffi inside the tent than
out.

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September 7, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Gadaffi turns his gaze across the Sahara
LIBYAN DIPLOMACY AFRICA RELUCTANT TO LINE UP BEHIND MAVERICK
STATE:

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Tripoli

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 592 words

DATELINE: Tripoli

African leaders are expected to take a sceptical view of the Libyan leader
Muammer Gadaffi's efforts to use African issues as a springboard from which
Libya hopes to escape notoriety after seven years of United Nations sanctions.

For much of the past two days, Col Gadaffi has been greeting African heads of
state and government in a hangar at Tripoli airport for an extraordinary summit
of the Organisation of African Unity, scheduled to open with a military parade
today.

The glare of publicity, the splendour of the arrival ceremony and the fact of
the summit taking place in Libya at all, have been used by the 30-year-old
regime as a mark of the realignment of its foreign policy towards African rather
than Arab issues.

Col Gadaffi's shift has brought mixed reactions. He accused Arab states of
failing to give adequate support following the imposition of UN sanctions in
1992. Some therefore regard the Libyan shift as spite, with little real
substance owing to the stronger identification of most Libyans with the Arab
world rather than sub-Saharan Africa.

The sanctions - imposed after Libya failed to hand over Lockerbie bombing
suspects for trial - included an embargo on international flights to Libya, as
well as the freezing of Libyan assets abroad and a ban on exports to Libya of
oil production equipment.

Pressure from African states to lift sanctions led to a decision by the OAU in
1998 allowing African leaders to break the air embargo. By contrast, no Arab
leaders broke the sanctions, including the OAU's Arab members.

Libya is now keen to use the credit it reckons to have built up during 20 years
of support for leaders as diverse as Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Charles
Taylor of Liberia. In doing so, Libyan strategists aim to build on what they
provided in the past in the form of money and weapons, by now attempting to
determine the political direction of the continent.

"Libya has concrete proposals, centring on the creation of more African
institutions to bring security, economic co-operation, and education," said Ali
Tureiki, undersecretary for African affairs at the Libyan foreign ministry.

Libya intends to use the OAU meeting to recommend that African countries
dismantle trade barriers on the continent, allow the free movement of people,
and create more effective mechanisms for conflict resolution.

Col Gadaffi's policy priorities are regarded as undergoing a long-term review,
in the light of the end of UN sanctions. But with an increasing number of
African countries now embarked on IMF structural adjustment programmes, any
overt shift towards Libya while the US maintains unilateral sanctions against
the country would appear a risky option for many vulnerable African states.

Although Libya has provided assistance to governments such as the military
regime in Gambia, as well as recently announcing that it plans to make
investments worth $ 100m in Ethiopia, the sloganising and rhetoric which are
prominent features of Libya's self-appointed role as a spokesman for the
continent, are far from offering solutions to the problems of economic
underdevelopment and conflict.

"It's part of the credit to Libya for its past support, in the form of guns and
military training. But it's also in part that the African countries don't want
Libya mischief-making in Africa. If we remain on good terms with Gadaffi, who
many of us know only too well, then we are less likely to find our own
dissidents being trained by the same men who once trained us," said an African
diplomat.

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September 7, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Libya makeover

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 425 words

Muammer Gadaffi is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Libyan revolution by
portraying himself as a gentler, reformed leader.

His public relations drive includes hosting an extraordinary summit of the
Organisation of African Unity this week in Tripoli. More than 35 African heads
of states are expected to show up to hear Mr Gadaffi bill himself a peace-maker
in Africa.

Last week, Mr Gadaffi was shaking hands with foreign delegates at a Tripoli
investment conference. The event was meant to promote oil-rich Libya as a
tourist haven and to unveil the first stage of a $ 35bn five-year investment
programme.

Changing Libya's image from that of a state sponsor of terrorism will take a
long time and many more substantive measures. But since the April suspension of
United Nations sanctions and the handover of the two Libyans charged with the
1988 Lockerbie bombing, Mr Gadaffi has taken steps to settle other terrorist
disputes.

He has offered compensation to families of victims of the 1989 bombing of a
French flight over Niger. He has agreed to co-operate with British police in the
investigation of the 1984 shooting of a policewoman outside the Libyan embassy
in London.

Britain has resumed diplomatic relations with Libya. And other European
countries are improving ties, lured in part by prospects of lucrative contracts.

To turn Libya into a normal country, Mr Gadaffi will have to do a great deal
better at home. And Europe should use its closer relations to push him in that
direction. Human rights monitors say they are deeply concerned about the
detention of hundreds of political prisoners without charge or trial.

As Libya tries to woo foreign investors, Mr Gadaffi also needs to improve
economic management. The UN embargo will only be permanently lifted once Libya
is shown to have co-operated with the trial of the Lockerbie suspects due next
year. But the sanctions can no longer be used as a convenient excuse for poor
economic performance.

The mess that is the Libyan economy is due to Mr Gadaffi's erratic management.
He recently said that only the private sector can alleviate unemployment, which
is now 30 per cent. Yet he has been known to call for increased participation of
the private sector in the state-controlled economy only to subsequently punish
entrepreneurs by closing down their businesses in dubious anti-corruption
campaigns.

Increased foreign business interest in Libya should exert welcome pressure on Mr
Gadaffi. But it is too early yet for the west to join the celebrations.

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September 7, 1999, Tuesday USA EDITION 1

Smile please
OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 173 words

Smile please

Who is that posing for his picture with the cre'me de la cre'me of western
capitalism? Surely it can't be Libya's very own Colonel Gadaffi?

With the end of United Nations sanctions and no less than $ 35bn of investment
planned for his country in the next few years, the man who once said that the
western economic system sucks countries "of their lifeblood" is suddenly getting
along very well with bankers and industrialists.

So it isn't too surprising that 140-odd business types at a recent symposium in
Tripoli gathered round in a semi-circle, trying to get their photo taken with
the Brother Leader after he made an impromptu appearance.

The great statesman obliged by swiftly moving along their ranks, pausing for a
picture with each capitalist - despite the use of crutches that were deemed
necessary after a recent mystery accident.

"Colonel Gadaffi was lucky enough to have had his picture taken with me,"
exulted one self-important bloodsucker in the room. That's certainly one way of
seeing it.

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September 6, 1999, Monday EUROPE EDITION 1

Smile please
OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 166 words

Smile please

Who's that posing for his picture with the cre'me de la cre'me of western
capitalism? Surely it can't be Libya's very own Colonel Gadaffi?

With the end of United Nations sanctions and no less than $ 35bn (euro 33bn) of
investment planned for his country in the next few years, the man who said the
western economic system sucks countries "of their lifeblood" is suddenly getting
on very well with bankers and industrialists.

So it's not too surprising that 140-odd business types at a recent symposium in
Tripoli gathered round in a semi-circle, trying to get their photo taken with
the Brother Leader after he made an impromptu appearance. But the the great
statesman obliged by swiftly moving along their ranks, pausing for a picture
with each capitalist - despite the use of crutches after a recent mystery
accident.

"Colonel Gadaffi was lucky enough to have had his picture taken with me,"
exulted one self-important bloodsucker. That's one way of seeing it.

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September 6, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Geneva pesticide talks

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK; Pg. 46

LENGTH: 1231 words

United Nations talks on a treaty to curb persistent organic pollutants (pops)
resume in Geneva (to Sept 11). About 110 governments are taking part in the
talks which aim to ban or restrict 12 long-lasting toxic pesticides, industrial
chemicals and dioxins that pose a serious risk to public health and to the
environment. However, health experts have expressed concern about plans to phase
out DDT, banned in the west but still used in developing countries against the
malaria-carrying mosquito. The UN environment programme hopes to complete the
treaty next year.

Cook visits Japan

Robin Cook, Britain's foreign secretary, makes his first trip to Japan today.
During his three-day visit, Mr Cook will meet Keizo Obuchi, Japan's prime
minister, and Masahiko Komura, the foreign minister. He will attend several
events to promote trade and investment links between the two countries. He will
also visit Nagoya to attend an opening ceremony at the new British consulate.

Albright in Vietnam

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright continues her visit to Ho Chi Minh City
and Vietnam. Tomorrow she will officiate at the opening of the US
consulate-general.

African summit in Libya

Sirte in Libya hosts a summit of African leaders five months after the United
Nations suspended sanctions. Leaders from member states of the Organisation of
African Unity will review the charter of the 36-year-old organisation (to
September 9).

Belgrade car show

The Belgrade car show, Autoteh, takes place, a repeat of the spring car show
which was disrupted by the Nato air strikes against Yugoslavia (to September
11).

Holidays

Bulgaria (Unity Day)

TUESDAY 7

Kinnock at Brussels hearing

The European Parliament completes hearings of the team of 19 chosen by European
Union member countries to join Romano Prodi at the head of the European
Commission.

Neil Kinnock, one of four survivors from the last Commission, which resigned in
March, is the last to be heard. In spite of some weak performances by a handful
of the 16 commissioners-designate questioned last week, MEPs are expected to
back the team as a whole. The vote will be taken next week.

French PM in Canada

Final day of the visit by Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien and visiting
French President Jacques Chirac to the remote northern territory of Nunavut.

Holidays

US (Labor Day). Mozambique (Victory Day)

WEDNESDAY 8

US Congress returns

Congress returns to Washington after a summer recess. Republicans are expected
to send their $ 792bn (£495bn) tax reduction bill to President Bill Clinton, who
has promised to veto it. High on the legislative agenda are 13 spending bills
that fund the federal government's routine operations. So far, only one has been
signed into law. Also under consideration are gun control, healthcare, and
campaign finance reform.

Albright visits New Zealand

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrives in Auckland, New Zealand in
advance of imminent Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) meetings.

Holidays

Lithuania. Malta.

THURSDAY 9

Apec gathers in Washington

Apec ministerial meetings will convene in Washington until September 10 to
discuss trade, financial, and other economic issues, as well as Apec's role in a
global trade liberalisation before the November World Trade Organisation
ministerial meeting in Seattle, opening markets, opportunities for expanding
business in the region and the after-effects of the regional financial crisis.

FRIDAY 10

EU finance ministers meet

European Union finance ministers begin a three day informal meeting in Turku,
western Finland, which is expected to focus on improving economic policy
co-ordination in the EU and economic assistance to the western Balkans. Because
of British reticence, there are few expectations of progress on the EU
Commission's long running plans for a withholding tax on cross border savings.

Schroder visits Budapest

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder visits Budapest in Hungary to express
gratitude for its role in the breaching of the Berlin Wall 10 years ago. It is
the 10th anniversary of Hungary opening its border to the west, allowing
thousands of East Germans to leave.

Black Sea leaders meet

Leaders of more than 20 Black Sea and Baltic states meet in Yalta, Ukraine to
discuss European integration (to September 11). They will discuss political and
economic cooperation in the two regions, as well as joint measures to avoid
creating new dividing lines in Europe in the next century.

East African trade treaty

The tripartite commission on East African co-operation meets in Arusha, Tanzania
in order to review outstanding issues and to complete a treaty-making process
with a view to setting up a regional free trade area.

Holidays

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

SATURDAY 11

India's election

New Delhi administrates the second phase of India's third general election in as
many years. Other phases will follow on September 18 and 25 and October 3.

Bulgaria hosts peacekeepers

Plovdiv in Bulgaria becomes from today the headquarters of the newly formed
peacekeeping force in south-eastern Europe. The central Bulgarian city in the
vicinity of the Balkans will be the force's headquarters for four years.

Danish SDP congress

Social Democratic Party congress takes place in Odense, Denmark. The party will
debate Danish co-operation with European economic and monetary union.

Holidays

Catalonia, Spain (Catalonian Day). Eritrea, Ethiopia, Israel.

SUNDAY 12

Apec summit

The Apec summit begins in Auckland, New Zealand until September 13. Discussions
by 21 heads of state will range over economic issues such as trade and financial
markets. President Clinton will attend and meet Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Coup's silver anniversary

Today is the 25th anniversary in Addis Ababa of the army coup that deposed
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who had ruled since 1930.

Airports managers meet

A four-day annual conference in Geneva of the Airports Council International
brings together chief executives and senior management from airports worldwide
to discuss the business outlook for 2000.

Sumo tournament

The 15-day autumn grand sumo tournament opens in Tokyo. In the tourney, four
yokozuna grand champions and three ozeki wrestlers in the second-highest rank
and 33 other wrestlers will compete for the Emperor's cup. Akebono, the
Hawaiian-born yokozuna wrestler, will enter the arena from the prestigious east
spot as the top-ranked sumo wrestler.

Chinese culture week ends

Closing day of the Chinese cultural week at the Unesco headquarters in Paris to
mark the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. It has included a
symposium on economic and social development in China with minister Zeng Peiyan
of the state development planning commission, and another on cultural exchange
with minister Zhao Qizheng of the state council's information office.

Aids conference in Zambia

The 11th international conference on Aids and sexually transmitted diseases is
held in Lusaka, Zambia (to September 16).

Poland celebrates Solidarity

Warsaw celebrates the 10th anniversary of approval by the Polish parliament of
the Solidarity-led government of prime minister Tadeuz Mazowiecki in a vote
formally ending communist rule. Edited by Martin Mulligan Fax 44 171 873 3196

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September 4, 1999, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Gadaffi tries to brush up his image:
The country is planning a makeover to lure investors and
tourists, says Mark Huband:

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 547 words

Rare is the speech in which allegations of terrorism are denied and the crisis
facing international money markets is lamented, almost in the same breath.

But this formidable feat was achieved seamlessly by Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan
leader, this week celebrating 30 years in power.

Such is Col Gadaffi's notoriety that those who have not seen or heard him speak
are initially spell-bound, then unnerved and finally relieved, while the mind is
left wondering what the ultimate message has been.

Against this mixed background of awe, fear and curiosity, Libya has now decided
on a makeover. The search is on for a public relations company prepared to
transform the man former US President Ronald Reagan dubbed the "mad dog of the
Middle East" into an elder statesman, while his country is sold as a desert
paradise.

To an extent, the government has already moved in this direction. "We are not a
dictatorship. All the people are involved in ruling themselves. This is direct
democracy. We are not saying we are perfect. We have our problems - social,
cultural and political. But we are trying to solve them," says Giuma Abou
Elkheir, director of Libya's external information service.

Frank admissions of domestic political problems are something new in Libya.
Rumours of an armed Islamist uprising in 1996 were at the time denied by the
regime. Recently, Col Gadaffi admitted it had happened and had been quashed. The
information about-turn was expedient, as it allowed the government to
distinguish itself from neighbouring countries still facing Islamist violence.

"We have the best stability in the region. And stability is important in the
tourism industry," says Mr Abou Elkheir.

But the trial, expected to open in February 2000, of two Libyans accused of
planting the bomb that blew up a TWA aircraft over Scotland in 1988, is seen as
the real test of Libya's potential for success in its efforts at rehabilitation.
Meanwhile, the $ 31m (£19m) Libya paid in July to families of victims of the
bombing of a UTA French airliner in 1989 has yet to amount to a ticket to
rehabilitation, particularly as Libya refuses to acknowledge responsibility.

"The images of Libya that are produced in Britain when the country is mentioned
are not favourable. We would seek to try to persuade the British public to look
past and beyond those images. We would seek to humanise the face of Libya," says
Marcus Courage of Strategic Profile International, a London agency, of the task
facing whoever wins the public relations contract.

Visitors are being laden with brochures and coffee-table books showing a side of
Libyan life that has nothing to do with revolutionary rhetoric. Col Gadaffi does
not appear at all.

Instead there are images of turbaned Tuareg nomads, palm-fringed oases and
ancient desert towns, intended to create a wholly new version of reality, beside
that of the great Roman ruins for which Libya is famous.

To push home this message of a new and friendly face, delegates at the investor
conference were invited to shake the hand of a smiling Col Gadaffi. Close up,
the man in the white suit and black silk shirt may look old, tired and less than
a firebrand. One wondered where he fitted in to the image of Libya about to be
sold to the world.

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September 3, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

Gadaffi shows wariness of foreign investors

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Tripoli

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 607 words

DATELINE: Tripoli

Colonel Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, yesterday risked deterring foreign
investment in Libya by rejecting the liberalisation of the financial markets now
increasingly being followed by the country's neighbours.

In a tough two-hour speech to a symposium of more than 100 European, Asian,
African and Middle Eastern and Canadian industrialists and financiers, Col
Gadaffi issued a strong warning to foreign investors hoping to benefit from the
suspension of sanctions against Libya, saying the government would block
speculative investment, which he blamed for the collapse of Asian markets in
1997.

Earlier, Jadallah Azuz al-Tahli, secretary of planning, announced that private
sector investors would be sought to provide up to $ 14bn of investment in
industrial, agricultural and infrastructure projects between 2001-2005. The
figure, which accounts for 40 per cent of total planned investment of $ 35bn
during this period, is 30 per cent higher than the level announced when seven
years of United Nations sanctions were suspended in April.

Col Gadaffi's analysis of Libya's condition was the first he has given since
sanctions were suspended. He revealed the extent to which a strategy of state
control, as well as a deep suspicion of western financial institutions, continue
to lie at the centre of the government's political outlook.

"The world is now being run by a handful of speculators and traders. The man who
looks only for money, is like the man who breaks into the jewellers shop, takes
everything, and then runs away. The world is now trying to legalise theft and
stealing," he said.

Libyan officials are determined to retain strict control over the nature of
investment made in the country, in particular by encouraging foreign joint
ventures with the domestic private and large public sectors. The economy is
predicted by the government to grow at 5 per cent annually in 2001-2005, above
the anticipated 4 per cent annual growth in population.

Creating convergence between the growth targets of government ministers and the
suspicion of foreign investors and global financial institutions as bluntly
expressed by the Libyan leader, is the main political challenge now facing Col
Gadaffi's 30-year old regime.

"I'm very much convinced of my views. Anyone who can convince me to the
contrary, please do so," the Libyan leader told the silent gathering of
investors yesterday. "The Asian tigers have become rats rather than tigers.
Foreign investors made investments there not in projects but in financial
markets. Libya cannot accept this. Libya does not need them."

He emphasised that legislation introduced in 1996, but until now barely invoked
due to the sanctions, provides protection for foreign investors in Libya.
However, his suspicion of financial investors is likely to deter many of the
emerging market funds, whose investments have played a significant role in the
acceleration of financial sector and industrial activity in Egypt, Tunisia and
Morocco.

Col Gadaffi's views, however, appear more rigid than other government officials,
who list the steady withdrawal of the state from some economic activities and
the gradual reductions in state spending since 1986, as two of Libya's main
achievements.

"The basic principle of policy is the diminishing direct role of the state," Mr
al-Tahli said. Now, with Libyan oil export earnings expected to reach $ 5.6bn
this year and $ 6.6bn in 2000, export earnings will be an inadequate source of
income to finance the ambitious investment plans, creating further pressure to
attract a variety of foreign investors rather than discourage them.

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September 2, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Italian generals face trial

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 37 words

Italian generals face trial

Four Italian generals are to be tried for "high treason" after a probe into the
loss of a passenger aircraft found it was destroyed during a dogfight between
Nato and Libyan jets. Page 2

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September 2, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Italian generals accused of high treason
DC-9 CRASH INQUIRY COVER-UP CLAIMS AS MAGISTRATE FINDS LIBYAN AND
NATO JETS DOWNED AIRCRAFT IN 1980 DURING DOGF:

BYLINE: By Paul Betts in Milan

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 634 words

DATELINE: Milan

Four Italian generals are to stand trial for "high treason" after an
investigation into the loss of a passenger aircraft 19 years ago found yesterday
that the DC-9 was destroyed as the result of a dogfight between Nato and Libyan
jets.

The finding appears finally to have resolved one of post-war Italy's most
sinister mysteries, with potentially embarrassing consequences for Nato and the
Italian armed forces.

The 3,000 page report produced by Rosario Priore, the Rome magistrate
investigating the crash, concluded that flight IH 870 from Bologna to Palermo
was caught up in a "war-like scenario" on the night of June 27 1980, and crashed
in the Mediterranean near the island of Ustica, north of Sicily. All 81 people
on board died.

The airliner of the now defunct Italian domestic carrier Itavia found itself in
the middle of a dogfight between Nato fighters and Libyan MiGs at a time when
tensions were particularly high between the US and Libya, then threatening to
attack Egypt.

A military aircraft appeared to be using the DC-9 to hide from enemy radar
during the confrontation. The magistrate was able to piece together the incident
from information and radar material provided by Nato and Italian air traffic
control.

The investigation was unable, however, to determine whether the military
aircraft shielding under the DC-9 was a MiG or a Nato aircraft, or which side
had shot down the airliner.

The magistrate ordered four Italian air force generals, including a former chief
of staff, to stand trial on charges of "crimes against the constitution" and
"high treason" for trying to cover up the causes of the crash.

Immediately after the crash, both Nato and the Italian authorities denied it had
been caused by a military confrontation with Libyan fighters. Instead, the
airliner was said to have crashed either because of a bomb on board or
mechanical failure.

Wreckage was recovered from the sea shortly after the DC-9's loss. Some of that
wreckage later went missing. A few weeks later a crashed Libyan MiG was
discovered in the hills of Calabria in the southern tip of Italy.

The families of the 81 victims of the crash suspected a military cover-up and
have waged a campaign for the truth to be told. An Italian government inquiry 10
years ago failed to reach any conclusions and claimed it had found no evidence
that radar tapes and other evidence had been destroyed.

But new evidence - part of a sea-to-air missile was discovered in July 1991 in
the DC-9 wreckage by a UK salvage team - and indiscretions from air traffic
controllers and dissident air force officials caused the case to be re-opened.

Mr Priore has now concluded that the military conducted a large scale cover-up
of the disaster.

Before issuing his conclusions and indictments yesterday, Mr Priore consulted
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the Italian president, and Massimo D'Alema, the prime
minister, due to the possible diplomatic repercussions with Italy's Nato allies
and with Libya, an important trading partner.

Italy has recently been intensifying its economic relations with Libya,
especially in the oil, gas and banking sectors.

The Cermis tragedy in northern Italy last year, when a low-flying US military
aircraft broke the cable of acable car killing 20 people, caused considerable
strains in US-Italian relations. US aircraft appear to have been involved in the
dogfight that led to the Ustica disaster, in addition to French jets.

Nato yesterday said from its Brussels headquarters that it did not intend to
make any statement on the Italian magistrate's findings. A Nato spokeswoman said
the issue was now in the hands of the Italian authorities and judicial system
and that Nato had co-operated with the magistrate and had transferred all
"possible information" to him.

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September 2, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Investors to urge Libya to free economy
TRIPOLI CONFERENCE GADAFFI REGIME FACES TEST OF READINESS TO CEDE
CONTROL OF ECONOMIC SECTORS:

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Tripoli

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 494 words

DATELINE: Tripoli

Libya's growing need for foreign investment is expected to intensify pressure
for further economic liberalisation despite the government's determination to
retain control over the economy.

Government strategy and the demands of foreign companies intent on exploiting an
estimated $ 9bn worth of investment opportunities in Libya following the
suspension of United Nations sanctions earlier this year will be discussed today
at the first of a series of investor conferences in Tripoli to be organised by
the government.

The conference will be a big test of the government's readiness to cede greater
control of the economy to the foreign and domestic private sectors, which are
also expected to use it to demand greater transparency.

Libya is also under pressure to improve its image abroad radically in order to
encourage tourism. Central to the tourist development strategy is the potential
for beach holidays as well as cultural tourism centring on extensive ancient
ruins, in particular, the Roman ruins of Leptis Magna.

Sanctions imposed in 1992 were suspended in April when Libya handed over for
trial two men accused of masterminding the bombing of a US airliner over
Scotland in 1988.

The government estimates Libya lost $ 20bn as a result of sanctions, which
included the freezing of assets abroad, a ban on imports of equipment for the
oil sector, and an air and arms embargo. Foreign reserves now stand at $ 4bn,
largely due to the low level of imports under sanctions.

Officials are sensitive to the possibility that economic liberalisation may lead
to pressure for a loosening of political control by the regime of Col Muammer
Gadaffi, who celebrated 30 years in power yesterday.

"Encouraging foreign investment is very important to us. But it's also very
sensitive," said Bashir Ali Zenbil, organiser of today's conference and director
of the Libyan Foreign Investment Board (LFIB) formed in 1997 as part of the
moves towards a degree of economic reform.

Conditions are expected to be imposed on foreign investors in areas which are
domestically the most politically sensitive. In particular, repatriation of
earnings by foreign workers will be limited if foreign companies do not also
employ local labour. The measure is intended to prepare the economy for the
arrival in the jobs market of the 50 per cent of the population under 15 years
old.

The government's hopes are pinned on tourism, infrastructure, agriculture and
manufacturing industry, as well as in the oil and gas sectors, which account for
50 per cent of government revenue and 95 per cent of export earnings. It also
aims to resuscitate Libya's trading role, using the recently established Tripoli
freeport as the nucleus for trade between Africa and Europe.

"If we don't control investment it could be very dangerous. ..So, it will be
guided. We are not going to open the country to foreign investors without any
restrictions or limitations," Mr Zenbil said.

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September 2, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 1

Italian generals face trial

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 42 words

Italian generals face trial

Four Italian generals are to be tried for "high treason" after an investigation
into the loss of a passenger aircraft 19 years ago found it was destroyed during
a dogfight between Nato and Libyan jets. Europe, Page 2

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August 21, 1999, Saturday W EDITION 1

It's enough to make you green with envy:
Michael Carlson asks one high-flying hobbyist about his
collection of airline sickbags which, he is relieved to

SECTION: PERSPECTIVES; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 891 words

Ken Melville's collection spews out all over his otherwise tidy office in a
basement in Primrose Hill. The sight of air sickness bags adorning every
available inch of wall space is somehow unsettling, like Turner Prize winning
wallpaper gone mad.

And when you think about what the things Melville collects are designed to
collect, well, you're glad all the items are in mint condition.

"It's the first question everyone asks," says Melville, rather enjoying his
visitor's discomfort.

Melville, who sells advertising for the Harvard Business Review, fell into
sickbags while running an advertising business in Rome. "I'd never collected
anything as a boy, but I was travelling a lot and swizzle sticks or sugar
packets seemed tacky," he says.

"Then one day I noticed that the air sickbags were easy to walk away with. I
assumed no one else collected them, and thus an anorak was born." The most
satisfying part of collecting, Melville says, is to see the way bags themselves
conform to national stereotypes. "Swissair's bag is functional, quite precise,
while Uzbekistan's is decorated in a psychedelic pattern that's enough to make
you nauseous by itself.

"Air India's is decorated with flowers, while Air China's looks like rice paper.
Quantas has a larger bag, evidently designed for heavy duty. And the Americans
are always selling something: many of their bags double as film processing
offers; you use the bag as the mailer."

His favourite, however, is Continental of the US. Its sickbag doubles as a
doggie bag for flyers who wish to take leftover airline food home with them. "It
actually says 'PS, cats love our food too'."

Airlines in many Latin American countries do not provide bags. "Their passengers
are too macho to actually use them," Melville says. Language reveals much as
well. In German, sickbag translates as the onomatopoeic "spuckbeutel".

The pride of Melville's collection are two bags from special papal flights on
Lot, and a bag from Air Force One. "Lot made two upgrades for the second Pope
flight, the wine and the sickbags. Draw your own conclusions."

It took some manipulating to come up with a bag that once may have stared Bill
Clinton in the face. "In Rome, my company handled advertising for Newsweek. A
journalist friend did a story on the refitting of the president's plane at
Boeing, and got the bag then." Unfortunately, the bag is blank, but a letter
attesting to its authenticity is attached.

"The scourge of collectors is the blank bag," he says. He is worried about a
recent American invention called, nauseatingly, the "sic-sac", an anonymous
plastic bag in a generic envelope. "What airline would want to offer that?"

Collectors' protocol insists bags be gathered by people actually on the flight.
"Writing to the airline would be beyond the pale," Melville says as he pulls out
a hold-dall filled with bags. "But swap ping is OK." That idea came to him once
he discovered he was not the only collector.

"I somehow learned that someone else had a bag from Air Force Two. We got in
touch, and debated whether we should make a pilgrimage to ELAG, the Swiss
company which is the biggest manufacturer. We agreed the temptation to nick them
might be too strong.

"Then one day I searched for 'air sick bag' on the internet, and discovered we
were not alone." Melville is starting to sound like Agent Mulder from the
X-Files, but at home I follow his internet instructions.

A quick search throws up www.airsicknessbags.com, where California's Steven J
Silberberg provides two-sided snaps of each of his bags and is looking for
investors to back a film he wishes to make.

But nothing matches the Vomitarium web site that promises "fun for all the
family" (ourworld.compuserve.com/ homepages/grcurran/vomitum.htm).

American G.R. Curran boasts proudly of being listed in the "Loony Bin Hall of
Shame", and highlights a swapshop taken directly from his own shoebox
collection. It's enough to make you green, with envy.

The prospect of web-surfing to fill those gaping holes in a collection is hard
to resist.

"I still don't have a bag from Sabena, but no one seems to fly to Belgium any
more, not even MEPs," Melville says. He is most keen to acquire something from
the Queen's flight, or anything from a US Navy helicopter.

So don't they have to be from aircraft, I ask? My mistake. Out comes the Far
East Hydrofoil, from Hong Kong, where they call the journey "your flight". A
"test pilot" sickbag from the official opening of the Wild One Roller Coaster in
the US. And, winning the be-prepared merit badge, a bag from the Tokyo Airport
Limousine Service.

"I just missed Kingdom of Libya Airlines, which no longer exists," sighs
Melville. "I made my first flight just after it had become Libyan Arab
Airlines."

He points to various other reminders of past glories: Pan Am, Interflug,
Braniff, and Dan Air. "Ah yes, known to all as Dan Dare. I suspect a mint
condition bag may be a rare number from them."

He is also considering putting out a plea for help in tracking down the
provenance of his mystery bag. This unidentified beauty has a side graced by a
reindeer which appears to be throwing up what appear to be ice cubes.

My best guess - someone riding shotgun on Santa's sleigh - is wrong. I wind up
agreeing with Melville that he ought to seek help.

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August 20, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

Jakarta takes softer line on Aceh rebels

BYLINE: By Sander Thoenes in Jakarta

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 433 words

DATELINE: Jakarta

Indonesia yesterday softened its hard-line approach to separatism in Aceh, at
the western end of the island of Sumatra, sending its entire cabinet to the
province to speak to local leaders and withdrawing troops from residential
areas.

Gen Wiranto, the military commander and defence minister, said he and the other
ministers would arrive on August 28 "to meet with the Acehnese and listen to
what they want". The general launched his own charm offensive on Wednesday,
meeting notables in Aceh and announcing he had ordered troops out of towns and
villages to avoid further civilian casualties.

One Asian diplomat suggested the military had suspended its crackdown because it
had only sparked more violence and because they believed they could yet win over
Moslem clergy and other local leaders to support a ceasefire.

This looks a tall order: more than 200 people have died in recent months and
more than 100,000 fled the most violent districts in eastern Aceh. Unlike the
independence movement in East Timor, which leaves many Indonesians indifferent,
Aceh has drawn support from Moslem activists in Jakarta and politicians have
called for an end to military excesses there.

Gen Wiranto also said, however, that he might declare a state of emergency in
Aceh if attacks continued. He also raised Aceh's military status, indicating he
has no intention of meeting calls to pull out.

President B.J. Habibie tried earlier this year to damp separatist sentiments by
offering greater autonomy, a larger share of local revenues and an end to a
decade of human rights abuses that have left more than 2,000 dead. His visit
sparked only louder protests, however, and with East Timor moving towards
secession, the military all but overruled his initiative and cracked down hard.

"The people of Aceh will be very cautious in responding to the government and
the military," said Jusuf Ismail Pase, an Acehnese civil rights lawyer. "They
are afraid of both the military and [the rebels]. It would be better if there
were a mediator, such as the United Nations."

The military has ruled out negotiations with Aceh Merdeka, the rebel movement. A
local army commander yesterday said the rebels numbered about 600 and had been
trained in Libya.

Guerrillas shot and wounded two policeman on Wednesday during an ambush of a
convoy of soldiers and police.

In East Timor, meanwhile, 600 pro-Indonesian militia laid down their arms in
line with an agreement between several such militia and pro- independence groups
to allow for a peaceful referendum on August 30 on independence or autonomy.

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August 19, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Tyranny of sanctions:
Embargoes satisfy idealism in US foreign policy but doubts over
their efficacy and the cost paid by exporters are changing
attitudes in Washington, says Mark Suzman:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 1039 words

When in the wake of the first world war President Woodrow Wilson formally
endorsed economic sanctions as a foreign policy tool that would forestall the
"need for force" in international relations, he was applauded at home and
abroad.

These days, attitudes to sanctions are more ambivalent. Although the US has
spent the past decade imposing more sanctions on more countries than at any time
in its history, they have achieved only limited practical results. They have
also become ever more controversial with US business leaders and the country's
diplomatic allies.

A shift in attitudes is under way in Washington. While the White House and
Congress continue to stress support for the principle of embargoes, both have
become wary about imposing them. The most tangible sign of such a change came
last month when President Bill Clinton relaxed longstanding restrictions on
sales of food and medicine to "rogue" states such as Iran.

Now support has started to build in Congress for further changes in US policy,
including legislation aimed at increasing transparency and flexibility. "It may
be a bit strong to call it a sea change but there is finally a chance for real
reform," says Daniel O'Flaherty, vice- president of the National Foreign Trade
council and a spokesman for USA Engage, a coalition of business groups opposing
sanctions.

"There is a growing acceptance that in a global economy the US acting alone is
not going to coerce countries into changing their behaviour."

There were several factors behind the rush of sanctions over the past decade.
They formed part of an idealistic strain in US foreign policy that was
encouraged by the power of the US in global markets. They were also a popular
and relatively painless way for politicians to appeal to domestic constituencies
and pressure groups.

Some of the change in attitude stems from a change in the way sanctions have
been applied. Mr Wilson originally intended them as part of broad multilateral
initiatives, but the bulk of the 60-odd measures approved over the past five
years have been unilateral. They include controversial legislation such as the
Helms-Burton law on Cuba and the Iran-Libya sanctions act, which imposes
boycotts on third parties that trade with or invest in targeted countries.

Not only have such measures precipitated serious diplomatic wrangles - most
notably with the European Union - they have also hampered the US
administration's freedom of action in conducting foreign policy. The problem was
highlighted last year when the US was forced under a 1994 law to impose
sanctions on India and Pakistan when they held nuclear tests.

Such problems might be acceptable if they were accompanied by tangible results,
but a series of recent studies suggest that almost none of the sanctions has
succeeded in its primary goal of effecting change. Instead, as a report by
Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank, puts
it, there is growing consensus among analysts that "nearly all unilateral
sanctions fail nearly all the time".

The business community has also become more vocal in seeking to limit the
estimated $ 15bn to $ 20bn annual loss of exports because of sanctions. The
politically powerful agriculture lobby has made a priority of sanctions reform
in its effort to compensate for a stagnant home market.

"The net effect of self-imposed unilateral sanctions is that they may deny US
markets abroad, reduce our trade balance, lead to the loss of jobs, complicate
our foreign policy and antagonise our friends and allies," says Richard Lugar,
the Indiana senator who is a champion of reform.

So far the focus has been on lifting existing bans on the sales of food,
medicine and medical equipment, a move that has helped pacify the farmers
without attracting too much criticism from pro-sanctions groups. The Treasury
has issued regulations that would permit such exports in cases over which it has
discretion, such as embargoes against Iran and Libya.

The White House has argued that there is no harm in allowing regimes of which it
disapproves to spend money on things that benefit ordinary people. "Our purpose
in applying sanctions is to influence the behaviour of regimes, not to deny
people their basic human needs," said Stuart Eizenstat, deputy treasury
secretary.

A similar shift is under way on Capitol Hill. The usual flow of new sanctions
bills has declined to a trickle during the current session. The Senate has also
approved an amendment to one of its spending bills to ensure that food and
medicine are exempted from future sanctions. Several other proposals in line
with the White House's executive decision are being considered seriously.

Previous attempts to push such legislation through Congress have been blocked by
Jesse Helms, the powerful chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But
although Mr Helms recently accused sanctions opponents of co-operating with
"thugs, tyrants and terrorists", he now says he is prepared to support changes
to existing policy, provided they do not damage "moral and national security
interests".

That has raised hopes that Congress may be willing to accept fundamental reform.
This could include a proposal by Mr Lugar that potential sanctions require
formal cost-benefit analysis. Negotiations are under way to try to come up with
an acceptable compromise bill by the time that Congress returns from its summer
break next month.

It is still possible that reform efforts will be swallowed up in the crowded
agenda. Any fresh international crisis could also lead to a hardening of public
opinion on the use of sanctions. But although some sticking points remain - such
as whether the president should be able to waive sanctions in the national
interest - officials say prospects are encouraging.

Even if legislation is not passed, most observers think attitudes have changed
sufficiently to ensure that the US will proceed more cautiously in applying
sanctions in future.

Richard Haass, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution,
says: "There is much more awareness of the fact that sanctions have broad
consequences and we need more flexibility and transparency in applying them."

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August 14, 1999, Saturday W EDITION 1

Summer in the city, and there's plenty afoot
TRAVEL UPDATE JOHN WESTBROOKE:

SECTION: TRAVEL; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 773 words

WALKING MIRACLES: You can car it or bus it, but the best way to see any city is
on foot. Guided Walks in London,for instance (tel: 0171-243 1097), will take you
on £5 walks around such places as Belgravia, City alleys, the Millennium Mile
and Saucy Southwark, or will tailor- make one for you. When in New York, try Big
Onion (tel: 212 439 1090) for ethnic, historic and architectural walks led by
Columbia University historians. In Cape Town pick up a copy of Ursula Stevens'
Cape Town on Foot (R39.95/£4) and stroll through the city's multifarious
history. And Penguin Books is adding a Time Out Book of Paris Walks (£9.99) to
its London volume: 25 Paris itineraries are included, including one by Michael
Palin on the trail of Ernest Hemingway. NELLIE'S 100: Cape Town's Mount Nelson
Hotel is 100 years old in October, and Union-Castle Travel (tel: 0171-229 1411),
whose parent company built it, offers a six-night stay for £1,199 including
flights and special events: dinner, cocktail reception, gala ball. Whale
watching and safaris can be added on. PRIME TIME: Unattached and unteenaged? You
can still holiday in the sun with Solo's (tel: 0181-951 2800), on a seven-night
break on the Greek island of Zakynthos from September 1, for the 45-69 age
group, and even try the watersports. Cost: £565. YOMPING BREAKS: As
Santiago-Mount Pleasant flights resume, Travel Collection (tel: 01306-744300)
offers 10-night holidays in the Falkland Islands. Walking, birdwatching, and
more, in the remote islands (full board), with a two-night stopover in the
Chilean capital, all from £1,499. RIVIERA ROUNDUP: Classic Week in Monaco,
September 9-19, claims to feature the biggest collection of motor boats, motor
yachts and traditional sailing yachts anywhere. Enjoy the spectacle with
Travelscene (tel: 0181-427 4445) or Cresta (tel: 0161-926 9999). OPEN ROAD:
Grand Touring Club combines accommodation in the East Anglian countryside with
self-driving in classic cars. New to the fleet: an Aston Martin DB6, 1956
Bentley Continental, open-top Jaguar XK120 and a Ferrari Dino 246. For details,
tel: 01449-737774. TOURONTO:Drive east with Eastern Canada (Thomas Cook,
£12.95): routes, eats and sleeps not just in spruce Toronto, Niagara and up the
St Lawrence, but in the lesser-known Atlantic provinces. Details for everything
from the Stephen Leacock Museum to Dildo Tours (it's a Newfoundland village.)
TASTE OF INDIA: Indian Encounters (tel: 01929-481421) takes an Indian Kitchen
tour in November to study and taste the cooking of Rajasthan - secret Rajput
family recipes included. A day will be devoted to southern cooking from Kerala,
too. Cost: £1,870 plus flights. TAKE A SEAT: As you might expect, Hollywood has
some of the world's most ornate picture palaces - but they're falling out of
use. The Last Remaining Seats (Balcony Press, £22.95), a lush photographic
record, shows 15 of the most glamorous, including the few you might still get
into. BRIDGE THE SEA: Visit the Bridge Festival from November 17 as it rounds
the Arabian peninsula - on Swan Hellenic's ship Minerva. The 16-day Petra-Muscat
trip includes competition bridge and lessons for beginners, as well as cultural
excursions and guest lecturers, and even stops in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Tel:
0171-800 2200. SUN-UP:The sun won't exactly rise over Antarctica on New
Millennium Day, as it hasn't set. But you can see it anyway, from 10,000ft, on a
chartered jumbo flight out of Australia with Antarctic Sightseeing Flights; from
A$ 1,999 including ice cream. Tel: +61 3 9725 8555; or
www.antarcticaflights.com.au SCHOOL OF FISH: Hunt trout in the chalkstream
rivers of southern England with Fishing Breaks; you can hire guides and tackle,
or try their fishing school at Nether Wallop Mill, near the Test. Tel: 0171-359
8818 or look up www.fishingbreaks.co.uk HOT SANDS: With the return of flights to
Libya, tour operators are again taking visitors there. Airborne Adventures (tel:
01756-730166 or www.airborne.co.uk) plans hot-air balloon holidays with nights
in the desert. Holts Tours (tel: 01304-612248) will visit second world war
battlefields there in November. MOUNTAIN EIRE: Climb Ireland's Munros - all the
mountains above 3,000ft, including six peaks of MacGillicuddy's Reeks - on a
holiday with Irish Ways hill-walking specialist (tel: +353 55 27479). Yes, some
degree of fitness is advisable. AUSTEN COUNTRY: A Jane Austen centre has opened
in Bath, on the street where she lived; she set two of her novels in the town -
Persuasionand Northanger Abbey, soon to be filmed there. Tel: 01225 443000 or
www.janeausten.co.uk

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August 3, 1999, Tuesday USA EDITION 1

Turbulent North African neighbours look to strengthen trade and
investment ties:
The region is trying to revive the United Maghreb Arab union to
create a common market between Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Mauritania and Libya, writes Roula Khalaf:

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 07

LENGTH: 806 words

Tunisians often say their misfortune is to be sandwiched between two turbulent
neighbours - Algeria and Libya. But lately, Tunisia's business community has
begun to detect opportunities as well as instability next door.

With Libya opening up to foreign investment following the suspension of United
Nations sanctions, and the seven-year violence in Algeria having receded,
Tunisian businessmen are looking to emulate their success at home by venturing
into bigger neighbouring markets with vast oil and gas resources but more
underdeveloped economies.

While some manufacturers have already set up small units in Algeria, bankers are
scouting Algeria, Libya and Morocco for business. Tunisie Valeurs, for example,
which was a pioneer in Tunisia's leasing and brokerage markets, is closely
co-operating with a brokerage house in Morocco and it has plans to set up an
operation in Algiers.

Adel Dajjani, a founder of Tunis-based International Maghreb Bank, which has
launched a Maghreb investment fund, recently spent two weeks in Tripoli looking
for investments for European clients. "This is the future. If governments make
access to North African markets easier, the private sector will do the rest,"
says Mr Dajjani.

Politics has been the main impediment to closer co-operation in the Maghreb. But
led by Tunisia, North African governments are trying to revive the moribund
United Maghreb Arab union (UMA) founded in 1989 and aiming to create a common
market between Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and Libya. Members held
their first meeting in five years in Algiers recently and are now discussing
plans for a summit later this year.

In recent years, feuding between members has blocked efforts to move the UMA
forward. In particular, Algeria and Morocco, which have always been suspicious
of each other, have been locked in a dispute over the Western Sahara, the
territory over which Morocco claims sovereignty and where the Algeria-backed
Polisario Front wants independence.

Borders between Morocco and Algeria have been closed since 1994, after an attack
on a Marrakesh hotel was blamed on Algerian extremists. Trade links between
Algeria and Tunisia have also been on hold for three years, following a trade
dispute.

This year's push to revive the UMA is driven not only by lobbying from the
private sector in the region. Both the European Union and the US have been
pushing Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria to set up a common economic area, which
would become a magnet to foreign investors.

Morocco and Tunisia have signed association accords with the EU, aiming to bring
them into a free trade zone by 2010. Algeria is negotiating a similar accord.

The agreements are part of the Euro-Mediterranean initiative, which is also
designed to promote economic integration across the Arab world through changes
in the "rules of origin" for the region's exports into the EU.

Indeed, this pushed Tunisia and Morocco in March to sign a trade agreement
modelled on the accord with the EU.

Moreover, a US initiative to create a partnership with Morocco, Tunisia and
Algeria was launched last year.

The US is developing its move, which centres on increased trade and investment
links, in talks that bring together all three countries. "The US initiative
starts with the premise that the Maghreb is one entity, and they are looking at
the growth potential of the region," says a Tunisian official. This potential is
a market of nearly 70m people in three countries where reforms are transforming
the economies.

Tunisian officials say that at the recent meeting of the UMA a decision was
taken to "put aside everything that separates us and concentrates on what unites
us".

This may be wishful thinking. The Western Sahara dispute, supposed to be settled
in a referendum next year, will remain a source of tension until then.

Libya may be trying to rehabilitate itself following the handover of the two
suspects charged with the bombing in 1988 of a passenger aircraft over Lockerbie
in Scotland. But it will remain behind its peers, with neither the EU nor the US
likely quickly to include it in their initiatives.

Diplomats say strife-torn Algeria is key to resurrecting the UMA because of its
clout in the region and its involvement in the Western Sahara issue.

Attention is now focusing on Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the new president, to see
whether he tries to gain international recognition by improving relations with
his neighbours and playing down Algeria's fierce nationalism.

"It would not be a happy outcome if, at the end of the Euro-Mediterranean
initiative, there are only bilateral agreements and no south-south agreements,
and Europeans dominate the economies of the south," says a European official.

"What is needed is a south-south counterbalance economically and politically."

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July 28, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

ENI reaches agreement to develop Libyan reserves
NEWS DIGEST

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 34

LENGTH: 130 words

DATELINE: Rome

ENI, Italy's partly privatised energy and chemicals conglomerate, has reached
final agreement with Libya's National Oil Corporation for developing offshore
block NC41 and onshore block NC169, whose gas, condensate and oil reserves total
1.8bn barrels of oil equivalent.

The project, which will require investment of about $ 5.5bn and is expected to
start production towards the end of 2003, will create infrastructure that will
allow other Libyan onshore and offshore reserves to be developed. International
tenders for the construction packages will be issued soon. Operating through its
Agip Gas affiliate, ENI will pipe gas and condensates from the NC41 block,
located 110km north of Tripoli, to a gas processing plant at Melitah on the
Libyan coast. David Lane, Rome

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July 27, 1999, Tuesday USA EDITION 2

US to modify Iran and Libya sanctions

BYLINE: By Mark Suzman in Washington

SECTION: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 357 words

The US will today modify its unilateral sanctions regime against Iran, Libya and
Sudan to allow sales of food, medicine and medical equipment to the three
states.

The decision follows an April announcement by President Bill Clinton that he
would exempt such products from US sanctions unless the measure was justified by
the national interest. It comes after heavy lobbying by the US agriculture
industry, which is keen to boost exports to offset a depressed domestic market.

Stuart Eizenstat, deputy Treasury secretary, said that the sanctions hurt US
producers without producing significant policy benefits. "Sanctions on food,
medicine and medical equipment do not generally advance our policy goals and may
have adverse consequences in the humanitarian realm," he said.

The changes do not affect sanctions against other so-called "terrorist" states
such as Cuba, Iraq and North Korea. However, the US already permits limited food
and medicine sales to those countries under separate domestic and multilateral
initiatives.

Officials from the US Agriculture Department estimate that total grain imports
by Iran, Libya and Sudan amount to around $ 1.7bn annually. If the US was able
to regain the market share it held before sanctions were implemented it could
sell an additional $ 500m worth of such bulk commodities, mostly to Iran.

Dan Glickman, agriculture secretary, said that the policy shift recognised that
the US often handicapped its own farmers in favour of global competitors through
use of unilateral sanctions. "While this new policy does not mean automatic
approval of agricultural sales, it places the presumption on the side of
approval and gives US producers and exporters an opportunity to compete in more
markets," he said.

Licences for eligible sales will be granted on a case-by-case basis and no US
government funding or financing will be allowed.

Mr Eizenstat admitted there was no guarantee that the affected countries would
choose to buy US goods, but he said he was confident that US agriculture was
very competitive on the global market. "The key is, our products will be
available," he said.

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July 24, 1999, Saturday LONDON EDITION 3

King Hassan of Morocco dies
POLITICAL CONCERN SON APPEALS TO PEOPLE FOR 'CALM AND PATIENCE':

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: WORLD NEWS; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 400 words

DATELINE: Cairo

King Hassan of Morocco died from a heart attack yesterday after being admitted
to hospital in Rabat, his son, Crown Prince Sidi Mohammed, announced last night.

The king, who was 70 and had ruled Morocco since 1961, had suffered from
respiratory problems since 1995. He died less than an hour after being admitted
at midday. The crown prince, who is expected to become king within the next few
days, appealed to Morocco's 29m people for "calm and patience".

Regional leaders reacted with a mixture of personal sentiment and political
concern to the death of one of the key early players in the Middle East peace
process. Shimon Peres, the former Israeli prime minister, said the region had
lost one of the key Arab supporters of the process, who had taken political
risks to facilitate Arab-Israeli contacts as long ago as the 1970s.

"He was a visionary, a believer in peace. He supported it, dreamed of it and
fought for it," Mr Peres said yesterday. "The king was pushing and promoting
peace in the Middle East in any manner he could. With his passing we lose one of
the most experienced and wisest leaders that this region has enjoyed in the last
half century. For me personally, I am losing a very dear friend."

The king's death comes at a crucial time not only for the Middle East peace
process but for the Maghreb countries of north-west Africa.

The steadily improving situation in Algeria, as well as the re-emergence of
Libya after years of economic sanctions, are likely radically to alter the
region, in which Morocco alone has maintained relative calm.

As significant will be the impact of the king's death on UN plans for a
referendum on the future of the Western Sahara, which Morocco occupied in 1975.
King Hassan regarded the retention of the territory as vital to his prestige,
though the United Nations intends to hold a referendum allowing its indigenous
people the choice of independence or incorporation into Morocco.

Crown Prince Sidi Mohammed has been carefully groomed to succeed his father. He
has been widely seen at official functions, and represented the Moroccan monarch
at the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan earlier this year.

He is expected by analysts to now become more active in the shaping of political
reforms started by the late king, which are intended to establish democratic
institutions in the country after centuries of royal rule.

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July 19, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Rethinking relations

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK; Pg. 40

LENGTH: 1276 words

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels will discuss the grouping's
external relations in the post-Kosovo era. A stability pact for the Balkans is
also on the agenda and the ministers are due to consider future policies towards
the former Yugoslavia.

Watch this space

The third United Nations conference on the exploration and peaceful uses of
outer space begins in Vienna (to July 30), the first since the end of the Cold
War. The aim of the meeting, which will group policymakers, officials,
scientists and business executives, is to establish a blueprint for
international co-operation in space activities to share the benefits of
space-related science and technology. In particular, the conference will look at
ways of harnessing space applications (such as weather and telecoms satellites)
to promoting sustainable development.

Transatlantic meat deal

European Union farm ministers are expected to back a veterinary agreement with
the US to allow mutual recognition of systems for inspecting meat bound for each
others' markets. The deal, aimed at facilitating trade, is due to be signed on
Tuesday. Farm ministers will also review developments in a Belgian food scare
caused by contamination of animal feed by dioxin, a cancer-causing chemical.

Bomb case extradition

The extradition case against two Egyptians accused of conspiracy to murder is
scheduled to be heard at Bow Street magistrates court in London. The charges
arise from the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam on 7
August 1998.

Glacier threat

The World Meteorological Organisation's hydrology and water resources programme
meets in Birmingham where it will hear a report on the alarming shrinkage of
glaciers in the Himalayas, threatening the water supplies of 500m people on the
plains of the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers (to July 30).

Swan upping

The historic annual census of swans known as swan upping begins on the River
Thames. Swan upping dates from the 12th century and takes place during the third
week of July each year. The Sovereign's official Swan Marker is obliged to count
the young cygnets each year and ensure that the swan population is maintained.

With us for the present

The Father Christmas World Congress opens in Copenhagen with 150 Santas from 15
countries (to July 21).

TUESDAY 20

Parliament returns

The European Parliament assembles in a new building for its first session since
last month's elections. More than half the 626 MEPs will be new to the
parliament, including 50 of the 87 UK members. First business of the four-day
sitting will be to choose a new president and chairs of committees. Romano
Prodi, new president of the European Commission, will brief parliament on
Wednesday on the responsibilities of his team of 19 commissioners and Tarja
Halonen, Finnish foreign minister, will outline her government's priorities
during its presidency of the European Union. Kosovo and the Belgian dioxin
crisis are likely to be discussed later in the week.

Microbe wars

An international scientific conference organised by the European Commission in
Brussels tackles one of the major challenges of contemporary medicine - the
steadily increasing resistance of pathogenic micro-organisms to antimicrobial
agents. The failure of these medicines is responsible for many thousands of
deaths worldwide.

Stepping back 30 years

The US marks the 30th anniversary of man's first step on the moon with Neil
Armstrong's descent from the lunar module Eagle. The funeral of Peter Conrad,
the third man to walk on the moon, takes place on Monday. Conrad, commander of
the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969 and the Skylab space station in 1973,
died in a motorcycle accident.

Holidays

Colombia, Japan, Botswana.

WEDNESDAY 21

Czech reshuffle

Milos Zeman, the Czech prime minister, is due to announce a cabinet reshuffle
timed for one year after his minority Social Democrat government took office.
Zeman has said he wants to weed out those ministers in his party's first
government since the return of democracy who have proved not up to the job. The
foremost victim is expected to be Ivo Svoboda, finance minister, who has
struggled to master his huge ministry and is being investigated by the police
for an alleged fraud.

West Africa tour

Jacques Chirac, the French president, arrives in Guinea at the start of a tour
of west Africa. He proceeds on Thursday to Togo, on Friday to Nigeria and on
Saturday to Cameroon.

Opec summit bid

Venezuela's deputy energy and mines minister, Alvaro Silva, and Jorge Valero,
the deputy foreign minister, visit Libya as part of a tour to seek agreement for
a summit of heads of state of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
in Caracas after the next scheduled meeting of oil ministers on September 22.

Holidays

Belgium, Botswana.

THURSDAY 22

Apec in Tokyo

A two-day meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation grouping opens in
Tokyo. Participants will discuss issues including the current status of the
economic crisis, regional co-operation, and future prospects. Guest speakers
include Masahiko Komura, Japan's foreign minister, Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of
Toyota Motor, and Jenny Shipley, New Zealand's prime minister, who will make the
keynote speech.

OECD visits

The secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, Donald J. Johnston, visits Washington. He is expected to meet
high-level officials to discuss preparations for the World Trade Organisation
summit in Seattle in November. Jacques Delor, former president of the European
Commission, was recently appointed special adviser to the secretary-general.

Holidays

Gambia, Israel.

FRIDAY 23

Nuclear watch

A three-day international forum on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament
starts in Tokyo. Some 20 experts from all over the world will study ways of
further promoting global nuclear disarmament and maintaining the
non-proliferation system. Last week, there was a radioactive water leak in a
power plant in central Japan.

Tree people

The annual lumberjack world championship is held in Hayward, Wisconsin. Events
include the two-man cross cut and the hot saw. The 1998 all round winner was
Matt Bush.

Holiday

Egypt.

SATURDAY 24

Double premiere

The Salzburg music festival (to August 29) boasts two world premieres. The
festival opens with the first performance of Italian composer Luciano Berio's
Cronaco del Luogo for 45 solo instruments and 45 solo chorus voices and closes
with the first performance of American Philip Glass's Peace Symphony.

FT Survey

Quarterly Review of Personal Finance (UK editions only).

Holiday

Venezuela.

SUNDAY 25

Debt relief talks

Development ministers from Norway, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands meet for
two days near Stavanger, Norway, for an informal working session on debt relief.
German minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul will open the session with a
presentation on debt relief. Clare Short, UK minister, will talk on development
assistance in conflict situations.

Stepashin meets Gore

Russian prime minister Sergei Stepashin visits Washington for talks with
vice-president Al Gore. A joint commission co-chaired by Gore and Russia's
various prime ministers has been used by both countries as a channel to discuss
informally the most sensitive issues in relations between Moscow and the west.

Election campaign

Bangladesh's opposition Nationalist party plans a three-day march to drum up
support for early elections.

Holidays

Equador, Ethiopia, Tunisia. Compiled by Roger Beale Fax 44 171 873 3196

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July 16, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

AIC to raise $80m in London listing

BYLINE: By Peter Smith

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 179 words

Arabian International Construction plans to raise $ 60m-$ 80m (£38m-£51m) when
it floats on the London Stock Exchange in October or November.

AIC, which listed on the Egyptian stock exchange in 1997, said a London quote
would help it attract a wider range of investors. New funds would be used for
acquisitions in Europe.

It recently gained a foothold in Europe by buying the international division of
Fitzpatrick, the UK construction group, for £1.5m.

Mohammed Metwalli, chief executive, said the company operated in about a dozen
countries, including Turkey, Kuwait, Libya, Uganda and Dominica. More than half
the company's work was outside Egypt. "AIC's growth outside Egypt is much
higher. About 70 per cent of revenue is dollar-based," Mr Metwalli said.

Some 55 per cent of the company's shares are controlled by AIC's founders.
However, Mr Metwalli said about 30 emerging market funds, including those of ING
Barings, Merrill Lynch, Citibank and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, owned shares in
AIC.

Robert Fleming is advising AIC on its London listing.

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July 15, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Ethiopia and Eritrea accept peace proposal
OAU MEDIATION AGREED AT ALGIERS SUMMIT:

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf in Algiers

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 547 words

DATELINE: Algiers

Eritrea and Ethiopia have accepted a plan to end their 13-month border conflict,
the Organisation of African Unity said yesterday.

Salim Ahmed Salim, the OAU secretary-general, said at the end of the
organisation's summit in Algiers that Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Algerian
president and chairman of the OAU for the next year, would personally take
charge of mediating efforts.

However, Eritrea's President, Isaias Afewerki, cast doubt on the optimism
expressed by OAU officials, saying his country had accepted all the OAU
proposals but accused Ethiopia of procrastination.

"The Ethiopians said that while they agreed in principle with the proposal they
had to go back to their parliament for a final decision," he said. "This is an
excuse and a cover. Ethiopia does not want to accept the proposal."

The Eritrean-Ethiopian war, which has created 600,000 refugees, was a focal
point of the OAU's 35th summit. Algiers was eager to end the gathering with a
concrete achievement.

The organisation also decided yesterday to hold an extraordinary summit in Libya
in September to discuss a review of its charter. The expected conference, which
will coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Libyan revolution, was partly
made as a gesture towards Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, who is trying to
present himself as a principal mediator in African disputes.

OAU officials also said yesterday that a decision had been made to confirm a
1987 resolution that it would no longer tolerate leaders at its summit who had
reached power through a coup d'etat - a measure meant to show a commitment to
democracy in a region where several totalitarian regimes remain.

The Algiers declaration, a series of general statements and commitments to
resolve conflicts through peaceful means, also expressed support for human
rights - although the Algerian authorities this week prevented a human rights
conference from taking place in parallel with the summit.

The summit also adopted a convention on anti-terrorism committing governments to
co-operate in fighting the problem and preventing their territories from being
used as terrorist bases. The move was particularly welcome to Algeria, which has
campaigned throughout the world for assistance in fighting its violent internal
opposition.

Western diplomats said yesterday that the major achievement of the summit was
simply that it was held in Algiers. The country has been embroiled in an
internal conflict since 1992, when elections that Islamist candidates were set
to win were cancelled by the army. Mr Bouteflika is now taking steps to resolve
the conflicts.

Held amid tight security, the summit attracted a record 42 heads of state and
proceeded without violent incident. "Algerian got what it wanted: legitimacy,"
said one diplomat.

South African President Thabo Mbeki yesterday paid a special tribute to Algeria
and to Mr Bouteflika, reading a resolution that pledged solidarity.

Mr Mbeki also expressed hopes for the Congo peace agreement, which has not yet
been signed by the rebels trying to oust President Laurent Kabila.

The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, met Mr Kabila and his allies from Zimbabwe
and Namibia on Tuesday to discuss the role and size of a possible peacekeeping
mission in Congo.

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July 12, 1999, Monday USA EDITION 1

Algiers puts faith in high OAU turnout

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf in Algiers

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 567 words

DATELINE: Algiers

Algiers expects a record turnout of African heads of state for the 35th summit
of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) starting today, an event the
government hopes will break Algeria's international isolation.

Conflicts in the African continent are certain to dominate discussions at the
three-day meeting. But a peace deal reached last Wednesday between the
government and rebels in Sierra Leone has raised hopes for a more stable Africa
in the next century.

For Algeria, embroiled in its own crisis since 1992, the summit is of paramount
importance, representing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's ticket to regaining
some international recognition after an April election in which his six rivals
withdrew, claiming the poll was being rigged.

The new president has been trying to rehabilitate his image and to move towards
national reconciliation by releasing political prisoners and proposing a draft
law to pardon Islamist rebels.

Mr Bouteflika will be president of the OAU for a year, allowing him to address
the United Nations General Assembly this year and to try to replay the glory
days of Algerian diplomacy in the 1970s, when he was foreign minister and a
successful mediator in Africa.

The army-backed Algerian government has spared no effort to put on a grand show
for the summit. The capital has been given a facelift, with streets repaved and
decorated and a 420-room Sheraton Hotel built to house the conference.

The government has been selling the expected presence of a record number of
heads of state as an example of Mr Bouteflika's ability to restore dignity to a
battered country in which 100,000 people have died since 1992, when elections
the Islamist party were set to win were cancelled by the army.

Officials said the summit was destined to be a success because of the
"Bouteflika effect", and the prestige of the Algerian leader in Africa. "And if
people did not see that this was the beginning of the end to the crisis in
Algeria they would not be here," one official said.

However, human rights activists said yesterday they had been prevented from
holding a human rights meeting, denting the image of reconciliation the regime
has been eager to project.

Moreover, Algeria is not the only country in Africa with a need to improve its
image. As the government in Algiers was putting the final touches to the summit
last week, Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, tried to steal the limelight.

First he attempted to invite Eritrean and Ethiopian officials to Tripoli to
discuss reconciliation -a move which proved unsuccessful. Then he complicated
the event's organisation by announcing, shortly before he arrived on Saturday,
that he was bringing along a delegation of no less than 400 people.

The Libyan leader, attending his first OAU summit since 1977, has played a key
role in African peacemaking over the past year. Libyan officials attribute his
interest in black Africa to OAU support for his efforts to end United Nations
sanctions imposed after the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, in particular a
decision at the 1998 summit to ignore a ban on flights to Libya.

The UN Security Council suspended the sanctions in June after Mr Gaddafi handed
over two suspects for trial by a Scottish court in the Netherlands. Britain has
restored diplomatic ties with Libya but the US has expressed reservations about
a total lifting of sanctions.

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July 9, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

Engaging Libya

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 440 words

Britain's decision to restore diplomatic relations with Libya is the right one.
That is not to say that Muammer Gadaffi, Libya's mercurial leader, is now a
Jeffersonian democrat. It is simply to make a reasoned bet that he is less
likely to be a problem than he has been in the past. He has started to come back
into line with international law enough to justify a policy of engagement rather
than isolation.

That was the view of the international community when the UN suspended sanctions
against Libya in April, after Tripoli handed over two of its agents, suspected
of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
Britain had still to resolve the case of Yvonne Fletcher, a woman constable
killed by shots fired from the Libyan embassy while policing an anti-Gadaffi
protest in London in 1984. Libya has now accepted responsibility, agreed to pay
compensation to WPC Fletcher's family and co-operate in a reopened enquiry into
her death.

The US has said it will not follow suit until Libya agrees to compensation for
the 270 Lockerbie victims, most of whom were Americans. There is a difference
with the Fletcher case, however, in that Libyan culpability in that atrocity has
yet to be established; the trial of the two suspects is not expected to start in
the Hague until early next year.

Some will see commercial greed in Britain's move. Although UK-Libyan trade has
continued throughout seven years of UN sanctions (lighter than those on Iraq)
and 15 years of suspended ties, oil-rich Libya was once Britain's second largest
market in the region, after Saudi Arabia, whereas now it lags 12th. Certainly
British government and business is keen to re-establish positions since ceded to
its EU partners, notably Italy, the former colonial power. But it was Britain
which prevented Libyan inclusion in the EU's Euro-Med plan to create a free
trade zone between the Union and its Mediterranean neighbours by 2010.

Britain's action, moreover, is consistent with recent moves to upgrade relations
with a reforming Iran to ambasador level, and to restore ties with Sudan after
London supported Washington's ill-judged missile strike on a Khartoum
pharmaceuticals plant last August. Turning "rogue" states into simply difficult
ones, as Robin Cook, the UK foreign secretary, argued, tends to make the world
safer.

Col Gadaffi is still unpredictable and certainly no less vain and assertive. But
these days he is more likely to call in to talk shows to offer his solutions to
world problems than to despatch agents intent on violently resolving them. Let
trade and diplomacy mellow him some more.

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July 8, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Britain agrees to end 15-year diplomatic rift with Libya

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 33 words

Britain is to end its 15-year diplomatic rift with Libya, which yesterday
accepted "general responsibility" for the 1984 killing of policewoman Yvonne
Fletcher outside its London embassy. Page 12

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July 8, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Arab states fail to curb internet

BYLINE: By David Gardner, Middle East Editor, in London

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 379 words

Governments in the Middle East and north Africa, among the most autocratic in
the world, are fighting a losing battle against untrammelled public access to
the internet, according to a report yesterday by Human Rights Watch.

While not wishing "to be seen as anti-internet", Arab governments have resorted
to a variety of stratagems to impede the democratic potential of this
free-flowing medium, the US-based human rights monitor says.

"Authorities in this region are used to keeping tight reins on the media, but
they cannot control the free-flowing internet," said Hanny Megally, the group's
executive director for the Middle East and north Africa.

As of May this year only Iraq and Libya - partly because of international
sanctions - were not connected to the global web, while Syria was but denied its
citizens access. Fourteen countries from Algeria to Iran had cybercafes
affording public access, with 15 internet cafes, for instance, in Amman, the
Jordanian capital. Nevertheless, the number of people online is still tiny; one
estimate for the region, including Israel but not north Africa, suggests 880,000
have access, well under 1 per cent of the population.

Saudi Arabia, where the ruling royal family responded severely to the "fax war"
waged by Islamist dissidents based mostly outside the kingdom, has "the region's
most ambitious plan to block the flow of 'undesirable' data online", the report
says. Bahrain, a service economy requiring widespread web access, relies on
traditional secret policing methods to control it.

Tunisia, by contrast, has enacted internet-specific legislation reflecting its
tight restrictions on freedom of expression. This bans encryption without prior
authorisation, for example, and requires service providers to inform authorities
of their clients.

But Human Rights Watch says that tools to outfox the censors - such as
encryption, proxy servers, wireless communications and anonymous remailing -
seem to be outpacing the technologies of control.

The organisation recommends guidelines including the rights to freedom of
expression and privacy and that strong encryption should be available to users.
The Internet in the MidEast and North Africa: Free Expression and Censorship.
E-mail: hrwnyc@hrw.org

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July 8, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Relations restored after Libyan apology

BYLINE: By David Buchan, Diplomatic Editor

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 375 words

Britain is to end its 15-year diplomatic rift with Libya which yesterday
accepted "general responsibility" for the 1984 killing of policewoman Yvonne
Fletcher outside its London embassy. Libya promised to pay her family
compensation.

Announcing Libya's concession in the House of Commons, Robin Cook, foreign
secretary, said Britain would speedily resume full diplomatic relations and send
an ambassador to Tripoli.

The breakthrough follows Libya's separate agreement to deliver the two Libyan
suspects in the 1988 Pan Am airliner bombing over Lockerbie to the Netherlands
for a trial under Scottish law. As a result, selective United Nations trade and
air transport sanctions have been suspended.

But Britain insisted on progress in the case of WPC Fletcher before restoring
the diplomatic relations it ended after the 25-year-old officer was killed by
shots fired from the embassy in St James Square.

After discussions with UK officials outside Britain, Abudl-Ati alObeidi, Libya's
ambassador to Rome, finalised a joint statement with Mr Cook in London.

Libya expresses deep regret for the policewoman's death, undertakes to pay
"appropriate" compensation to her family through the social fund of the Libyan
police association and promises to co-operate with the UK police investigation
into her murder.

Scotland Yard yesterday hailed it as a "positive step" and looked forward to
"real co-operation" from Libya.

The joint statement came after brinkmanship from the government, which dissuaded
an all-party group of MPs from accompanying a delegation from the British-Libyan
Business Group to Tripoli on Sunday.

Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, the businessman leading the delegation of 16 companies,
expressed delight at the breakthrough, which would have "enormous political and
economic benefits".

Last year the UK exported £237m worth of goods to Libya, and imports totalled
£149m, according to the Department of Trade and Industry. Private sector sources
say these figures understate trade between the two countries.

The suspension of UN sanctions is expected to lift sales of aircraft and oil
equipment to Libya. US sanctions may not be lifted until the opening, next
spring, of the trial of the Lockerbie bomb suspects.

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July 8, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 3

Britain agrees to end 15-year diplomatic rift with Libya

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 35 words

Prodi's Commission takes shape

The creation of Romano Prodi's new European Commission edged nearer to
completion when Ireland named David Byrne, the attorney general, as Dublin's
next commissioner. Page 2

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July 8, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 1

Britain to restore relations with Libya after 15-year rift

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 70 words

Britain is to end its 15-year diplomatic rift with Libya, which accepted
responsibility for the 1984 killing of a policewoman outside the Libyan embassy
in London and promised to pay her family compensation. In April, Libya agreed
that two Libyan suspects should be tried for the Pan Am bombing. Some United
Nations sanctions against Libya were subsequently removed, but US sanctions are
still in place. UK, Page 8

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June 29, 1999, Tuesday SURVEY EDITION 1

A surprise for all its allies:
FOREIGN POLICY by James Blitz:
Italy's support for the Nato bombardment of Yugoslavia marks a
turning point in its post-war foreign policy

BYLINE: by James Blitz

SECTION: SURVEY - ITALY; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 856 words

Italy has long been seen as one of Europe's lightweights on the diplomatic
front, a country with less clout than France and the UK. But the Italian
government's remarkable response to the conflict over Kosovo this year suggests
Rome is beginning to make its influence felt both inside and outside Europe.

The support that Massimo D'Alema's government gave to the Nato attack, most of
it launched from Nato bases on Italian territory, is a phenomenon that would
have been inconceivable a few years ago. Italy has long been a country whose two
main political currents - Christian democracy and communism - have given it a
powerful pacifist strain. Italian support for the Gulf war and other recent
military interventions involving the US was lukewarm, to say the least. Far from
being pro-active, the main thrust of Italian policy in the post-war period has
been to mediate between East and West.

Mr D'Alema's support for Nato's operation marks a watershed. Outside Italy, some
diplomats still snipe that his government often looked like the "weak link",
appearing on several occasions to be more forthright than other Nato states in
calling for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. But most are quick to
acknowledge that Mr D'Alema scored a considerable achievement in maintaining the
support of a multi-party coalition for a 78-day military offensive in which
Italy directly participated.

Moreover, the result of the European elections this month suggests that neither
Mr D'Alema nor any other Italian politician was penalised for backing the
action. The Reconstructed Communists, who mounted a strident campaign for Italy
to withdraw its support for the bombing, saw a significant drop in their
support.

Meanwhile, Emma Bonino, the former European Commissioner who repeatedly called
for the despatch of Nato ground troops to Kosovo, saw her supporters make
significant gains. "We don't believe that the war played any role in the drop of
support that we [the Democrats of the Left] suffered," says a close adviser to
the prime minister.

Yet, despite this achievement, the character of Italy's foreign policy is still
in a state of evolution. While there is no tension between ministers over the
broad lines of the country's external policy, two distinct "voices" in the field
of diplomacy can be heard.

On the one hand, there is the powerful influence still played by Lamberto Dini,
the country's foreign minister. A disciple of the school of Giulio Andreotti,
the Christian Democrat prime minister who dominated the post-war scene, Mr Dini
is a committed exponent of the traditional mediatory role for Italian foreign
policy. This involves basic support for the US and the European Union but with a
development of strong links with states on the fringes of the international
community.

Mr Dini this year showed the strength of this policy to good effect. He has
personally played an important role in bringing Iran back into the international
community, bringing about a landmark visit to Rome this year by president
Mohammed Khatami, the first by an Iranian leader to the west since the 1979
revolution. Despite deep reservations in Washington, Mr Dini has also been quick
to re-establish relations with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Libya following the
long-awaited transfer from Tripoli of the Lockerbie suspects for trial in the
Netherlands.

The second "voice" is that of Mr D'Alema himself and of his aides at the
premier's office in Palazzo Chigi. They are keen for Italy to move away from
this mediatory role, developing a clear set of Italian interests and dispelling
doubts about Rome's loyalty to the EU and the Atlantic alliance. "To give
ourselves clout in Europe and the US, we have to stop whistling unusual tunes in
the wings," says one government official.

The conflict between these two lines could be seen momentarily in the Yugoslav
war. Mr Dini, for exam ple, has left open his contacts with the Yugsolav
leadership and was an occasionally outspoken opponent of the Nato bombardment,
particularly following the destruction by Nato of the Serb television station.
Mr D'Alema was far more cautious in his criticism, publicly warning Mr Dini at
one stage that Italy could not pick and choose which attacks to criticise after
they had been carried out.

For now, the relationship between the two men is complementary rather than
tense. Mr D'Alema's advisers believe that the foreign minister's critical stance
on the war played an important role in keeping the coalition together, defusing
the deep hostility of Italy's communists towards the bombardment. "What we saw
was, in essence, a well-organised team effort between both men," says one of Mr
D'Alema's advisers.

But the next few months will test more deeply which of these two lines comes to
the fore. Mr D'Alema's advisers appear to believe that the prime minister is now
at the helm of foreign policy-making and that the influence of Palazzo Chigi is
increasingly felt.

Moreover, Mr Dini has lost some political weight because of the abysmally poor
showing of his political party, Italian Renewal, in the European elections.

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June 29, 1999, Tuesday SURVEY EDITION 1

The marathon draws to an end:
ANDREOTTI TRIAL by James Blitz:
Giulio Andreotti, former prime minister, says that, despite all
the accusations against him, nobody has proved a link with the Mafia

BYLINE: by James Blitz

SECTION: SURVEY - ITALY; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 902 words

In the next few weeks, Italy will see the end of what has come to be known as
"the trial of the century". For the last seven years, Giulio Andreotti - seven
times prime minister, numerous times foreign minister, one of the dominant
figures of post-war Italian history - has been on trial for association with the
Mafia.

The investigation into Mr Andreotti, now 80 years old and still the instantly
recognisable hunched, bespectacled figure he has always been, has been a long
and tortuous affair.

It is expected to end at some point this summer. For many Italians, it has
amounted to a trial of the Christian democrat regime that dominated Italy until
its collapse in the early years of this decade.

The claim that Mr Andreotti (once routinely described as the finest political
mind in Europe), colluded with the Mafia has mainly come from the organisation's
"pentiti", or turncoats.

They have broken the Mafia's vow of silence to testify against the former prime
minister in return for formidable protection from the Italian authorities.

Their evidence compounds what many Italians have long suspected: that Mr
Andreotti and the Christian Democrats needed the votes of Sicilians in order to
be returned to office at successive elections. And to get those votes, 'Uncle
Giulio', as he is known in Italy, needed to do the Sicilian Mafia's bidding.

The Palermo trial (there is a separate one in Perugia on charges of conspiring
to murder an investigative journalist) has collected mountains of evidence from
the "pentiti" and other witnesses, much of which is already legendary.

The most striking claim is the one made by Baldassare Di Maggio, a Mafia driver,
as long ago as 1993. This is the suggestion that, on a certain day in September
1987, Mr Andreotti, then foreign minister, visited Palermo and went to the house
of Ignazio Salvo, a wealthy Sicilian businessman, where he met Toto Riina, the
Mafia godfather.

At the moment of encounter, says Mr Di Maggio, Mr Andreotti - "whom I recognised
without a shadow of doubt" - kissed Riina, a recognised symbol of fealty towards
the leader of organised crime.

There are many in Sicily who do not have the slightest doubt that Mr Andreotti
is guilty as charged.

But in his Rome office, he maintains his innocence. "At first, I was
overwhelmed, even physically [by the charges]," he told the FT. "But that lasted
only a short time... At the end of it all, nobody has come up with anything
against me that would amount to a favour - even a tiny one - to the mafiosi."

Mr Andreotti rejects the charge of the kiss with Riina. "I've got a face that's
known. Wherever I go, people instantly recognise me. And so I would have been
mad if, as alleged, I had gone to someone under house arrest to meet or to kiss
someone who was in the Mafia."

On the "pentiti" themselves, he believes that much of what they say is invented.

"Perhaps I was inconvenient to them in so many ways and they needed to put me
out of the game, put me on a slow burn. And with cheek, they admit that I pushed
through really severe anti-mafia laws but only so I could draw a veil on a past
full of favours. But what favours? I am still waiting to know."

Despite the years of trial, Mr Andreotti remains an alert figure. In an hour and
a half of conversation, his recollection of specific events in half-a-century of
politics - an argument with Margaret Thatcher over Libya in 1982 or a meeting
with Poland's Gen Jaruszelski in 1984 - is acute.

Nor has the loss of power burdened him. Mr Andreotti once famously warned that
"power consumes those who do not have it". But today, he insists that "faith in
God, the affection of family, the solidarity of so many people, have rapidly
restored equilibrium".

He is still, for a few, a figure to be feared. But he denies the legend that he
has an enormous personal archive that could yet destroy the reputations of
people in Italian life. "Enormous, no, but there certainly is one, yes. I have
always kept diaries, papers, documents from meetings... But there are no
skeletons in the cupboard, it's not like that," he says.

But, as the trial draws to a close, Italians remain divided in their views on
him.

For some, the central issue is that Mr Andreotti led Christian Democracy at the
height of the Cold War when the Italian state was still within the shadow of the
Iron Curtain.

"He was prime minister when the Italian communist party was a formidable force,
when the CIA station in Rome was the largest in Europe and the Vatican had a
huge say in Roman politics," admits one government member.

"To stay in power, he may have had to do certain things, but we must judge the
history of that time on its own terms, not those of today." Others believe Mr
Andreotti was at the apex of a system of organised crime that was huge in size
and savage in its means. Justice, therefore, should be meted out, they say.

Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, has admitted, however, that the trial is
"a political defeat". Mr Andreotti "should have been dealt with when he was
still in power," he is reported to have said.

Through it all, Giulio Andreotti firmly insists on his innocence. "I am waiting
for the verdict but I am still working. And today, compared to seven years ago,
I am more calm, more tranquil. People can get used to having cancer. Perhaps you
can get used to this kind of thing too," he says.

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June 28, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Annan urges united UN line on Iraq

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf, David Buchan and William Dawkins in London

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 466 words

DATELINE: London

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, urged the Security Council to
adopt a united front on Iraq as debate begins today on a UK-sponsored resolution
to resume co-operation with Baghdad.

Mr Annan cautioned the stalemate on Iraq was unhealthy for the Security Council
and for the region, and the UN had to consider regional security arrangements to
avoid an arms race.

Since last December's four-day US and UK air strikes on Iraq, the Security
Council has been divided on policy towards Baghdad, with the US and UK insisting
comprehensive sanctions remain until Iraq fulfils all disarmament requirements.
Russia, China and France say UN sanctions should be lifted while the remaining
disarmament work is pursued.

"I don't think the stalemate is healthy. I don't think in the long run it will
be in anyone's interest," Mr Annan said. "We have to find a way of resolving
this issue, to get compliance with Security Council resolutions, but we also
have to find ways of inducing the Iraqis to co-operate because it's perfectly
clear that without their co-operation we cannot get full implementation of the
resolutions."

Mr Annan, who discussed Iraq with Russian officials last week, said the
Council's involvement in Kosovo as well as the recent suspension of sanctions on
Libya should help in restoring UN relations with Iraq. "The two developments are
important . . .the Council has shown that it can also suspend, not just impose
sanctions," he said.

The UK resolution, co-sponsored by the Netherlands and supported by the US, is
not likely to win Council unity and UK officials said talks could last several
weeks. A Russian proposal to lift sanctions altogether has been dismissed by the
UK and the US as unrealistic.

The UK resolution creates a new body to oversee disarmament work in Baghdad,
replacing Unscom, the controversial UN special commission that Baghdad
repeatedly accused of spying. But it would suspend the oil embargo only after
the new agency declared Iraq had met key outstanding obligations on its
development of weapons of mass destruction.

The tasks would be listed in a clear road map. The resolution attempts to incite
other members of the Security Council to sign up to it by proposing to allow
some foreign investment in Iraq's oil industry after the disarmament body
testifies that Iraq has re-established full co-operation.

Other proposed measures, however, make it difficult for Iraq to accept the
resolution. In particular, the UK draft proposes depriving Saddam Hussein's
regime of funds accumulated through illegal oil exports to Turkey. The UK wants
this oil to be brought within the oil-for-food arrangement which now allows Iraq
to export up to $ 5.3bn (£3.34bn) of oil to buy humanitarian goods under strict
UN monitoring.

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June 23, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Jaw-jaw

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 460 words

The biggest challenge for US and European Union leaders at their bi-annual
summits is normally to find anything to talk about. That is mainly because the
EU speaks as one on so few matters of mutual interest. But Monday's summit in
Bonn did achieve something useful by launching a fresh effort to break the cycle
of transatlantic trade disputes.

These can stir up bitterness out of all proportion to their ostensible causes
and threaten the broader US-EU relationship. That is inherently absurd. It is
particularly dangerous when co-operation is vital to global economic stability
and, in particular, to launching a world trade round.

Both sides recognise the risks. But can they avert them? The Bonn summit's main
solution is an "early warning system" to identify and trigger consultations on
regulatory or policy moves by one side which could create problems for the
other. There are also proposals for more regular scientific exchanges on food
safety, a growing source of disputes, and for freer services trade.

These ideas are sensible, as far as they go. Jaw-jaw is always better than
war-war, and greater alertness to possible minefields may prevent some
explosions. For instance, by consulting with Washington sooner, the EU might
limit the disruptive implications of single market rules on such issues as data
privacy.

But most disputes are all too predictable. The EU knew its ban on
hormone-treated beef and its banana import regime would infuriate Washington -
but imposed them all the same. Bill Clinton signed sanctions laws penalising
investors in Cuba, Iran and Libya, even though the EU had repeatedly warned that
doing so would strain relations.

These examples show that if Washington and Brussels are to avoid future
frictions, the key lies in managing constituencies at home more effectively. Far
from stumbling into conflicts, both sides have typically been propelled into
them by powerful industrial or political lobbies and the tyranny of the US
electoral calendar. Resisting such pressures requires more vision, firmness and
courage than most governments possess.

Nonetheless, there are two things the US and EU can do to smooth relations. One
is to exercise more restraint when conflicts do occur, and avoid confrontational
tactics which only dig each side deeper into fixed positions. The other is to
allow the World Trade Organisation to get on with settling disputes.

It is encouraging that these are increasingly referred to the WTO. But the
system will only work if the US and EU play strictly by the rules. The recent
antics over bananas was a lesson in how not to behave. With many other
contentious cases in the pipeline, US and EU conduct in the WTO will be a
crucial test of their good resolutions in Bonn.

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June 19, 1999, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Bula signs oil deal with Iraq

BYLINE: By Thorold Barker

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 174 words

Bula Resources, the Irish exploration and production company, has signed an
agreement with the Iraqi government to buy 2m barrels of oil under the United
Nations "Oil for Food" programme.

The deal - which follows Bula's purchase of a similar number of barrels earlier
this year - underlines the group's attempts to focus on north Africa and the
Middle East after investment in Russia led to a write-off of I£12.3m (£10.1m) in
1997.

Tony Peart, who became managing director in March, said the company was trying
to finalise exploration acreage in Iraq and Libya. Albert Reynolds, the former
Irish prime minister, joined the company in March as chairman to strengthen
contacts in the area.

Pre-tax losses were I£1.18m (I£12.9m) for the year to December 31. Mr Peart said
the sale of Iraqi oil to a trading company would not be "that material" to this
year's results.

Bula - which raised I£1.75m in March - is expected to have to return to the
market for further funding within the year. The shares were unchanged at 1 1/4
p.

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June 14, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 2

US steps up search for its missing taxpayers

BYLINE: By Jim Kelly

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 268 words

US government officials hunting down tax dodgers believe more than half the
300,000 Americans in Britain fail to meet their obligation to file a US tax form
each year.

It is understood the US Internal Revenue Service working in the UK estimates it
should receive 120,000 tax forms a year but gets fewer than 60,000. To help
"discover" the missing taxpayers - who are said to cost hundreds of millions of
dollars a year - Washington-based tax experts are seeking to build up "profiles"
of Americans abroad most likely to be non-filers.

While the campaign is partly designed to catch tax dodgers, officials believe
the majority of non-filers are unaware they need to file and that most will not
have a US tax liability.

At the top of the list are students or young people who have only worked or
lived under the UK system - which, unlike that of the US, is based on the
principle of paying tax based on place of residence.

Next on the list are so-called "loners" - often skilled service individuals such
as consultants and IT experts who work with multi-national companies but are not
on their payrolls.

The problem is compounded by evidence that Americans seeking professional
services in the UK - from lawyers and accountants - can sometimes be advised
wrongly that they can rely on residence to avoid making a tax return.

Some Americans in the UK argue the system - which the US shares only with Libya
- is unfair. "Most people are not tax evaders but they do not see why they
should file two tax forms - it's taxation without representation," said one in
the financial services sector.

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June 10, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 2

Russian astronaut launches Mir fund

BYLINE: By John Thornhill in Moscow

SECTION: EUROPE; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 295 words

DATELINE: Moscow

One of Russia's most famous cosmonauts, Vitaly Sevastyanov, yesterday appealed
to his compatriots to dip into their pockets to help keep the legendary Mir
space station aloft.

Mr Sevastyanov said the station was still in excellent working condition and
could operate for another five years. "To wreck the orbiting complex would be a
crime before our descendants," said Mr Sevastyanov, who made two space flights
in the 1970s and is now a Communist MP.

The Russian space agency warned last week that the Mir station, which has
endured some terrifying glitches and a collision with a supply ship during its
13 years in orbit, would be abandoned this year unless more funds were
forthcoming. But so far this "cash or crash" ultimatum has not wrested more
money from the hard-pressed Russian government prompting the agency to resort to
more unorthodox financing methods.

The former cosmonaut urged his fellow Russians to contribute Rbs10 ($ 0.40)
apiece to a charitable fund set up to support the Mir station or to buy a ticket
in a special space lottery. If every Russian contributed that amount, Rbs1.5bn
could be raised, sufficient to cover Mir's annual operating expenses of about
Rbs1.2bn.

Mr Sevastyanov said donors could hand over their money to any branch of
Sberbank, the state savings bank. Instructions would be posted at all the bank's
34,000 outlets. Several Russian companies and some businessmen from Libya and
Iraq had already vowed to contribute, he said.

The fund would appear to have little chance of attracting the necessary cash in
a country suspicious of the integrity of many charities and the trustworthiness
of its banks. However, Mir is also the most visible symbol of the Russians' love
of defying seemingly insurmountable odds.

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June 7, 1999, Monday SURVEY EDITION 1

Western leaders impressed:
FOREIGN POLICY by Andrew Bounds:
Slovenia has shown a mature and constructive approach in the UN
and over the Kosovo issue

BYLINE: by Andrew Bounds

SECTION: SURVEY - SLOVENIA; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 950 words

Slovenia has found itself punching well above its weight on the world stage in
the last year.

First, the eight-year-old republic of 2m was elected to the UN Security Council
for a two-year term, chairing the Libya sanctions committee as two men accused
of the Lockerbie aeroplane bombing were at last handed over for trial.

Then the Slovenes' experience of life in the former Yugoslavia became important
as the West searched for a solution in Kosovo. The Albanian delegation to the
Rambouillet peace talks stayed in Ljubljana before travelling to France while
Montenegro, the Serbs' junior partner in rump Yugoslavia, recently opened a
representative office in the Slovenian capital, its first abroad.

The Serb attitude towards Kosovo was a prime factor in Slovenia's decision to
leave Yugoslavia in 1991.

"The west has had difficulty understanding what I call the Balkan mentality,"
says foreign minister Boris Frlec, a former chemistry professor who formerly
served as first Yugoslav then Slovenian ambassador to Germany.

"The values are different. They have a saying, 'A promise is a false joy'," he
adds, stressing that Slovenia is not part of the Balkans.

Western diplomats says they have been impressed with Slovenia's performance in
the UN and over Kosovo.

"They have been mature and constructive," says a western diplomat in Ljubljana.
"In the UN, they haven't just been US lapdogs. They've brought constructive
arguments to the table and prevailed."

Mr Frlec hopes the Montenegrin office in Ljubljana will enable the
democratically-elected government of Milan Djukanovic to strengthen its links to
the outside world as Belgrade seeks to impose border controls.

"Mr Djukanovic represents the germ of democracy that will hopefully be spread
throughout the region," he says.

Slovenia also hopes its support of the West in its showdown with Belgrade will
ensure its admission into Nato in the next round of enlargement, after deep
disappointment at being refused entry in the first wave. It opened its airspace
for the Yugoslav campaign before other aspiring Nato members and Janez Drnovsek,
prime minister, has said that Slovenia is acting as if it were already a member
of the alliance.

The country - which does not have diplomatic relations with Belgrade - has also
been active in Bosnia, setting up a mine clearance charity and providing
logistical support to the UN stabilisation force there. It contributed forces to
Italy's intervention in Albania when the collapse of pyramid investment funds
sparked chaos.

In recognition of its efforts and its success in establishing a successful,
stable democracy out of the ruins of former Yugoslavia, Bill Clinton will reward
Ljubljana with its first visit from a US president this month.

Slovenia, however, has its own unresolved Balkan questions with Croatia, even if
much progress has recently been made. William Perry, the former US defence
secretary, has become a go-between on territorial issues. A few kilometres of
the land border need to be delineated and Croatia claims sovereignty over the
waters of the Bay of Piran between the two countries.

The two countries have also agreed to refer a dispute over the funds of Croatian
depositors retained by Slovenia's Nova Ljubljanska Banka, when it closed its
Zagreb branch in 1991, to the International Monetary Fund for binding
arbitration. The question of nuclear waste and share of energy generated by the
Krsko power station, in Slovenia but jointly owned, is also grinding towards
resolution.

The biggest challenge facing Slovenia, however, is accession to the European
Union. With GDP per capita on a purchasing power basis already on a par with
that of the EU's poorest members, Ljubljana sees entry as confirmation of its
western heritage rather than solely an economic issue.

Market liberalisation has quickened since a chastening report from the EU in
November but spats still occur. Slovenia is refusing to close down its duty-free
shops, a good revenue earner, by July as requested.

Criticisms

Marjan Podobnik, deputy prime minister, condemns the EU for "double standards",
claiming Greece was planning new duty-free shops at the time when Slovenia was
told to close its down.

He also attacks Italy for lowering petrol prices on the Slovene border to stop
Italians crossing to fill up. Western diplomats respond that Slovenes must
accept their obligations.

"It is a small issue in itself but indicative of a larger point about commitment
to integration into a single market," says one.

Slovenia would argue it has shown its commitment in the huge legislative
programme prepared to comply with the acquis communitaire, the main body of EU
law and regulations. Parliament is being asked to sit for five weeks in the
summer recess to pass 84 membership-related laws.

Igor Bavcar, minister of European affairs, says Slovenia will soon be spending
up to 4 per cent of GDP readying itself for membership and has more than 600
civil servants working on EU matters. He says it will need to add another 2,000
to the 12,000-strong bureaucracy before entry.

There is also a need to interpret and implement policies in an EU context, not
just to pass laws. Mr Bavcar cites the example of state aid to business.

This is not outlawed by the European Union but must meet certain criteria. A
working party, due to report next month, has had to be set up to quantify state
aid and examine whether it fits EU requirements.

Janez Potocnik, chief EU negotiator, also believes there is a renewed sense of
purpose. "Things are moving. But people here have to realise the EU has a lot of
rules and that we also have to do things the European way."

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June 2, 1999, Wednesday EUROPE EDITION 1

Saudis call on Barak to prove peace commitment

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf in London

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 08

LENGTH: 339 words

DATELINE: London

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah yesterday called on Ehud Barak, Israel's prime
minister-elect, to prove his commitment to peace and distance himself from the
policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, his predecessor.

In a rare interview in a London-based pan-Arab newspaper, the crown prince made
clear the Arabs' attachment to Jerusalem and their refusal to compromise on the
return of the eastern part of the city to the Arab fold.

The crown prince was speaking during a tour of Arab countries expected to
include Syria, Libya and Egypt. His trip comes amid a flurry of inter-Arab
consultations on holding a limited Arab summit to co-ordinate moves on the peace
process. Any summit, however, is not expected to take place before Mr Barak
forms his government.

Mr Barak is holding talks with a broad range of parties, including the rightwing
Likud and the National Religious party, which supports Jewish settlement in the
occupied West Bank.

Arab leaders have been cautious in their reactions to Mr Barak's May 17
election. While hoping he will follow through with his pledge to set the peace
process back on track, they are waiting for concrete measures.

"I say this before the world to Mr Barak, the new Israeli prime minister: he has
to prove by deeds, not words, that he is not another Netanyahu," Crown Prince
Abdullah said.

The proof could come, he added, by showing commitment to implementing existing
agreements signed between Israel and Palestinians and "arrogantly" disregarded
by Mr Netanyahu.

The crown prince reiterated the kingdom's commitment to a comprehensive peace
and said no partial solutions would be accepted. "Either our full rights,
foremost of which is holy Jerusalem, or peace will remain in the womb of the
unknown," he said.

Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in the Arab-Israeli peace process,
and one that is dear to the heart of all Moslems. Israelis regard the city as
their indivisible capital but Palestinians insist that Arab East Jerusalem be
the capital of a future state.

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May 26, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

US tax-dodgers living overseas are to be hunted down by IRS

BYLINE: By William Hall in Zurich

SECTION: BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 378 words

DATELINE: Zurich

Americans living in Britain top the league of US expatriates who avoid tax,
according to the US Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS now plans to hunt down tax-dodgers when they apply for new US passports.
It will target expatriates in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong,
Australia, Israel and Switzerland.

According to census data and estimates of unfiled tax returns and unpaid tax,
more tax is owed by Americans living in those countries than elsewhere, Marlene
Sartipi of the IRS told a seminar of the Swiss- American Chamber of Commerce in
Zurich. Some 200,000 US expatriates live in London alone, making the UK home to
one of the largest American communities outside the US.

The US and Libya are the only countries that tax their citizens wherever they
live, but the IRS believes it is losing several billion dollars a year in unpaid
tax from the 3m US expatriates worldwide who have failed to file their
obligatory US income tax returns.

The US does not believe in letting its tax-dodgers off the hook, unlike Ireland,
which has had five tax amnesties in six years, and Italy, which has had more
than a dozen. Instead, the US is stepping up efforts to collect tax from
expatriates.

"Even if expatriates join the IRS's voluntary disclosure programme, it is not a
guarantee against prosecution," warned Ms Sartipi. US citizens have to provide
their social security number when renewing passports, making cross-checks with
tax returns easy, she said.

Ms Sartipi said the IRS had recently conducted a study based on information from
1,000 passport renewals. Of the 1,000 people contacted, 600 replied, and only 83
of the 600 had filed a tax return. Of the 30,000 US expatriates in Switzerland,
about 48 per cent are estimated to have failed to file tax returns.

Zurich-based Philip Marcovici of Baker & McKenzie, a US law firm, warned that US
expatriates not complying with IRS rules should try to sort out their tax
affairs before the IRS began an investigation.

About 15 per cent of taxes collected by the IRS come from tips provided by
ex-wives or disgruntled employees. In cases where unpaid taxes are particularly
high, US citizens with dual nationality may have to consider giving up their
citizenship, said Mr Marcovici.

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May 13, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Eizenstat seen as polished
DEPUTY TREASURY SECRETARY MASTER OF DIPLOMATIC GYMNASTICS:

BYLINE: By Richard Wolffe and Nancy Dunne in Washington

SECTION: THE AMERICAS: RUBIN RESIGNS; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 623 words

DATELINE: Washington

To describe Stuart Eizenstat as highly respected in Washington would be a rare
case of understatement. In a city that prides itself on hyperbole and
backstabbing, Mr Eizenstat has crossed several diplomatic and domestic
minefields with his reputation enhanced.

From trade disputes with Europe to the controversial hunt for Holocaust assets,
Mr Eizenstat has succeeded by using a rare mixture of understated diplomacy and
political compromise.

Hugo Paeman, the European Union ambassador in Washington, compares Mr
Eizenstat's diplomatic techniques with those of a hedgehog, "restlessly sniffing
at the edges of the cases he has to deal with, looking where the right entry can
be found. At the slightest danger, however, he curls up and becomes intangible.
Then he unrolls and starts again."

As a result, his relations with leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill are
second to none - in sharp contrast to the sometimes unpolished approach of his
new boss, Lawrence Summers.

At the start of one House banking committee hearing last June, Democrats and
Republicans vied with each other to produce the most effusive praise for Mr
Eizenstat's work on compensation for Holocaust victims.

James Leach, Republican chairman, said, only partially in jest: "Before
beginning, I want to compete with my colleagues for a moment . . to suggest you
have not only done a wondrous public service in your efforts . . but I
personally consider you one of the finest public servants of the century."

A veteran of Washington politics, the 56-year-old diplomat started his career in
Lyndon Johnson's White House but rose to prominence with Jimmy Carter. After
leading the policy debate on the Carter campaign, he became head of domestic
policy in the Carter White House in 1977.

He rejoined the government in 1993 as US ambassador to the EU, where he
developed what he called "the new transatlantic agenda" to restructure the ties
between the US and the EU. It was there he also became engaged in the emotional
issue of property restitution in central Europe.

His return to Washington took him first to the Commerce Department as
under-secretary for international trade, and then to the State Department with
broad-ranging responsibilities for economic, business and agricultural affairs.
Mr Eizenstat's stint as EU ambassador served him well in his role as a trade
diplomat. One early chore was to clean up the mess created by the sanctions
legislation against Cuba, Libya and Iran.

Mr Eizenstat began travelling the globe to assure US trading partners the
threatened sanctions were less serious than they appeared and would rarely be
invoked. The EU, whose companies would be most at risk, would not be appeased
and filed a complaint against the US in the World Trade Organisation. Mr
Eizenstat's diplomatic gymnastics produced a compromise that ended in an EU
pullback.

In exchange, he promised to push in Congress for an amendment to the most
offensive provision of the Helms-Burton laws. He knew how to talk to old cold
war warriors like Senator Jesse Helms when he argued that Cuban President Fidel
Castro would be "delighted" if the compromise fell apart.

While smothering Mr Eizenstat with praise, Congress never produced the
amendment, but the EU did not renew the complaint.

Although a high-profile figure in the US Jewish community, Mr Eizenstat
maintained his independence on the controversial and emotive issue of Nazi gold
and Holocaust-era assets, to win the trust of the Swiss banks. His efforts at
compromise broke down, but provided the framework for a $ 1.25bn settlement last
year. One insider said: "He is a rare kind of individual who combines practical
understanding of reality with idealistic principles."

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May 11, 1999, Tuesday SURVEY EDITION 2

Fuel for the economy:
ENERGY by Robin Allen:
The latest discoveries of natural gas have opened up some
encouraging prospects

SECTION: SURVEY - EGYPT; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 798 words

Although exports of crude oil continue to bring in the foreign exchange and
recent finds may even check the slow decline in oil production, it is Egypt's
abundant reserves of natural gas that are attracting western energy companies.

All the signs are that Egypt has not only enough reserves of natural gas to
transform its economy and raise its people's standard of living, but also
sufficient proven and probable reserves to be a gas supply hub for neighbouring
countries.

Production, now 1.6bn cubic feet a day, is set to double after 2000. Proven
reserves are some 37 trillion cubic feet, estimated to be enough for 20 years
even at an increased level of demand, and probable reserves of as much again.

According to western energy companies, deposits of high-quality sweet natural
gas formed over millions of years by the flow of sands from the Nile stretch far
out into the Mediterranean beyond the delta. "Discoveries of good quality
low-sulphur gas nearer onshore show that the sedimentary basin offshore is
world-class," says Roger Patey, chairman of Shell Egypt.

The two biggest gas companies are International Egyptian Oil Company, Agip's
joint venture with Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, and BP Amoco, also in
a 50 per cent partnership with EGPC.

IEOC produces 700m cubic feet a day. Shell's Badreddin Petroleum Company
(Bapetco) is producing 300m cfd from the Western Desert.

From next July, Shell will be producing another 300m cfd and 50,000 barrels of
oil a day from its Obaiyed concession west of Alexandria following a $ 600m
development programme which includes a gas pipeline to Alexandria.

These three companies, together with Italy's Edison International and BG Egypt,
part of BG International (formerly British Gas), are the main participants in
five different concession areas in the Nile Delta and shallow waters offshore
which will start producing this year. These five alone will double Egypt's gas
production starting next year.

BG Egypt's country manager, Peter Dranfield, says tests at West Delta have
already broken two records, the first for the volume of gas, just under 100m cfd
from the first discovery well, and the second for depth, the first time wells
have been drilled at a water depth in excess of 650 metres.

These finds will make a big impact on Egypt's economy. As gas becomes more
widely used for local consumption, a small but greater proportion of petroleum
products will become available for export.

Egypt has been self-sufficient in gas for the past four years, but soaring
domestic demand means that gas from fields coming on stream this year is being
bought for the domestic market by the state's Egyptian General Petroleum
Corporation.

The gas is allocated for several high priority domestic areas, first to convert
the last 20 per cent of the power stations which still burn oil, second to
extend the 2,000km gas grid, which is still confined to Cairo and northern
areas, to households and industry country-wide and third for feedstock and power
for new heavy industries including steel mills and petrochemical plants on both
sides of the Suez Canal in the north and industries along the Gulf of Suez.

A fourth priority, still in its infancy, is to extend the use of natural gas to
heavy public and private transport, particularly bus and lorry companies and
taxis, most of which add to heavy pollution in the cities with their diesel
fumes.

In the next five years, gas sales could start to take over as a hard currency
earner, with long-term gas export agreements being proposed with neighbouring
states, including Israel, the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza, Turkey,
Jordan and possibly Libya.

BP Amoco and Italy's ENI already have approval to extend to Israel a pipeline
being built by ENI to supply gas to the Palestinian Authority. And BP Amoco
officials have said the company is looking at sales to several countries,
including Jordan and Turkey, which could approach 500m cfd.

But, however good these plans look on paper, company officials say two
pre-requisites still need to be filled. The first is buoyancy and stability of
oil prices, to which gas prices are linked.

"Production-sharing contracts are very sensitive to low oil prices," says Mr
Patey. "A figure of $ 14 a barrel is OK but not profitable because you have to
take into account what you have spent to find the oil and gas."

Twenty-five-year gas purchase and supply agreements presuppose a degree of
regional political harmony many Egyptian energy specialists say is still
lacking.

Without such agreements, western energy companies may well be reluctant to
continue investing hundreds of millions of dollars required to exploit probable
reserves in deep water areas of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

May 11, 1999, Tuesday SURVEY EDITION 2

A tough time for exporters:
TRADE by Robin Allen:
Egyptian products are still having difficulty making headway in
world markets

SECTION: SURVEY - EGYPT; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 904 words

It was past 10.30 at night as six businessmen and bureaucrats, all shouting and
gesticulating at once, carried their argument from the minister's office into
the ante-room, where his secretary did his best to restore a semblance of calm.

"That argument," explained trade and supply minister Ahmed Goweily, who had been
watching the excitement from the safety of his office with benign detachment,
"was all about the cost of air-freight".

Businessmen, he went on, "complain of a government monopoly on air-freight and
of insufficient quotas for exporters. In fact," he insisted, "Egyptian air
freight is very competitive. It is, because my officials said as much in their
report. But some exporters, as you observed, do not agree."

State monopolies are just one of the many problems confronting exporters in
Egypt. On occasions, however, even state companies, with a nod from the
appropriate ministers, can be remarkably agile.

According to USaid officials, the biggest increase in exports last year - a 75
per cent surge in the sale of detergents - came from Egyptian public sector
entities taking advantage of the UN embargo on Libya.

The embargo blocked Libya's normal import route from Turkey, a handicap which
Egypt resolved to its own advantage by smuggling $ 26m worth of detergents
through its southern desert border into Libya.

Only the Egyptian public sector, USaid officials implied, was flexible and
powerful enough to pull off such a stunt.

Egypt's exports can be roughly divided into two categories; firstly, traditional
primary commodities, such as oil, cotton, and other raw materials going direct
to the developed world, with prices, over which Egypt has no control,
fluctuating according to global trading patterns.

The second category includes non-traditional items, such as ceramics, building
materials, refrigerators and other consumer durables, even pharmaceuticals, as
well as finished garments which Egypt can make cheaper than OECD countries but
for which it has to find its own export markets.

But so far, Egypt's non-oil private sector has largely failed to penetrate these
markets. So when global trade slows, as it did last year, and traditional
exports fall, the trade imbalance soars.

The good news last year was a 50 per cent increase, to $ 175m, in export sales
of long-staple cotton, where Egypt now has more than 30 per cent of the global
market. Exports of cotton yarn also rose 10 per cent, while those of ready-made
garments were up 23 per cent.

The trade deficit, on the other hand, at $ 11.8bn, was more than 15 per cent up
on 1997, 24 per cent more than in 1996, and nearly 50 per cent up on 1995.

The total value of exports fell by 3.7 per cent, and were less than 4 per cent
up on 1995. The biggest single casualty were oil exports, whose value, according
to Hamdi el-Banbi, the country's petroleum minister, fell 48 per cent compared
with 1997. Non-oil exports failed to take up the slack.

Mr Goweily is not deterred. "Our strategy," he insists, "will result in a 20 per
cent increase in non-oil exports this year."

The start of preferential trade agreements with 21 African countries, through
the Common Market of East and South Africa (Comesa), as well as with
neighbouring Arab countries, such as Jordan, Libya, and Syria, will mean "our
strategy is achievable", says Mr Goweily.

Businessmen and other observers are sceptical. "You can massage percentage
figures," says one western trade attache. "But in aggregate terms the potential
of the Comesa states is negligible."

Relations with the European Union, which takes 30 per cent of Egypt's exports,
only marginally less than the US, have been bedevilled by the EU's anti-dumping
measures against Egypt, and by what Egyptians see as punitively small European
quotas for Egypt's agricultural products.

But observers say that exporters also fail the competitive standards of
quality-control, packaging and marketing; and that European supermarkets can
never be sure of getting the right quantities from Egypt. So they buy from
elsewhere.

According to Mohamed Shehata, general manager of Rotterdam Consult and Cairo
representative for Mees Pierson, "the quality of the private sector's
performance is too dependent on the hierarchy of the public sector and its
power. The civil service bureaucracy," he adds, "still does not accept the
private sector is better qualified to run businesses".

As a result, small companies, which employ about three-quarters of the country's
non-agricultural labour force, and supply, according to Nassef Sawiri, chief
executive of Orascom Construction Industries, 80 per cent of the value added by
the private sector, find it almost impossible to get export financing from state
banks which prefer to fund mega-projects on instructions telephoned directly by
a minister.

Even Mr Goweily acknowledges that state and specialised banks have failed to
help exporters. Improving export finance and export insurance for businessmen,
he insists, are high on his list of priorities.

Which goes to show, say government critics, how ministers have failed to grasp
the most fundamental issue: that the government should get out of banking and
business and leave both to private sector professionals.

And there is not much time. National unemployment is now about 10 per cent. More
than half a million Egyptians are coming on to the labour market every year.

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

May 8, 1999, Saturday W EDITION 1

The paradox of Zanzibar:
METROPOLIS:
The spice island may conjure images of balmy Arabian nights, but
the reality is far from a fairy-tale for local

SECTION: BACK PAGE - WEEKEND FT; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 1864 words

It is midday in Cairo, Zanzibar, and the local youth areassembled at the Karibu
Club - a centrally located shack which boasts one of the village's two
lightbulbs. At the sight of a white face, a chorus of children cry, "Ciao, ciao"
in their best Italian. Nassor Salim, a local tourist guide, judges that the
arrival of a foreign visitor merits some extravagant hospitality, and produces
four bottles of Fanta.

The village is acutely poor. Its water tap - provided by the hotel next door -
is pointed out with reverential awe; the dilapidated homes for 80 people are
barely fit for habitation.

Yet, a mere 100 metres away, topless Italians sunbathe in luxury. The Venta
Club, one of several package holiday organisations which have sprung up along
Kiwengwa Beach, offers power and water in every bungalow, an atrium groaning
with shops, manicured lawns and thumping salsa music.

The villagers are permitted to use a path that runs through the centre of the
complex, but may not stray to either side. Farther along, a fence has barred
their path since the managers of the neighbouring Bluebay development won a
battle to keep out potential trouble-makers.

According to Cairo inhabitants, this means their children now have to walk twice
as far to school. "The Bluebay hotel has stopped the road for everyone," says
Salim. "When the tide is up, the children have nowhere to go, so they take the
long road. It used to take them 25 minutes; now it takes an hour."

Roy Taylor, Bluebay's Kenyan site manager, acknowledges the complaints, but says
there is little alternative if he is going to run a serious operation. "At the
beginning, the government said I could close the road, but when I did so there
was a huge controversy, so government officials said it should remain open," he
says.

"You can't run a site with people wandering around like that - Bluebay was going
to pull out over the issue. But we made a deal with the villagers: we created a
bypass road, and put something into the local school."

Welcome to Zanzibar, home of stunning beaches, untouched coral, luxury holidays
and grinding, sapping poverty, where tourists roam the beaches a short stroll
from the local mosque, where a push for foreign investment has attracted luxury
resorts and enriched the establishment, but where schools and hospitals cry out
for books and medicine.

Zanzibar, once the metropolis of East Africa, variously ruled by Shirazi
Persians, maritime Portuguese, Omani Sultans and British colonials, is in a
state of tension as it seeks to reconcile the demands of global capitalism and
multi-party democracy with decades of autocracy and socialism.

Its previous mainstay produce, cloves, is near collapse following years of
declining world prices, and the once thriving port is in trouble since the
mainland forced it to raise tariffs. Dreams of establishing a free-port have
foundered.

The ruling party, part of the Tanzanian CCM founded by independence leader
Julius Nyerere, has been at loggerheads with the opposition Civic United Front
since widely contested elections in 1995, although a Commonwealth-brokered
agreement last week has raised hopes that next year's elections will be free and
fair. Nevertheless, there are still deep concerns at the fate of 18 opponents of
the government, who have been accused of treason and held without trial since
November 1997.

Development has largely ground to a halt, following a freeze in western donor
aid imposed as a protest at the last election. In desperation, the local
government is courting states such as Libya and Iran for finance, and has caused
comment by bypassing the Tanzanian government - also accused of withholding
funds.

"We used to get some money," says Mohamed Salim, a discontented Arab tout who
complains of routine harassment. He stares longingly at a Stone Town Development
Authority manhole in the streets - testimony to generosity gone by - then points
at a dilapidated building alongside. "That is a school. You see what condition
our children grow up in?"

In the middle of this, tourism - the knight in shining white armour - has
arrived with a flourish, as $ 70-a-night hotels spring up where, 10 years ago,
only backpackers roamed. Dive clubs, restaurants, luxury resorts and even the
Aga Khan's Serena hotel group have staked millions in Zanzibari tourism.

One development alone at Nungwi claimed to be investing $ 4bn, although few
believe the money will ever appear. Most noticeably Italian package hotels have
arrived on the east coast, carrying on the tradition of Malindi in Kenya, and
accounting for two-thirds of the island's visitors.

In 1879, J.F. Elton wrote in his book Travels and Research Among the Lakes and
Mountains of Eastern and Central Africa: "An artist could find genial occupation
for years; but your matter-of-fact British tourist would vote the place slow,
and sigh for a future of broad streets and civilisation, broad-cloth, bottled
beer and blacking . . . from such revilers of the picturesque I trust a kindly
Providence may long deliver the quaint, queer rambling old Arab town of
Zanzibar."

He must be turning in his grave. The bottled beer flows from new bars and
restaurants, bringing with them prostitutes from as far as Zambia, and youths
selling drugs.

Perhaps this is nothing new. In the 1800s, the era of Tippu Tip, the slave
trader, and Sir Henry Stanley, the colonialist, ground-floor shop windows were
barred against marauding rogues. But locals are nonetheless shocked by what they
see as declining morals. The locally owned Tembo Hotel shuts its doors by
midnight, in defiance of the slim drunken beauties who strut the courtyard
outside.

Development, as everywhere, comes at a price. But the question on Zanzibar is
whether it also brings reward. In an ideal economy, the island would be
revelling in new-found tax rev-enues and spin-off employment; well-enforced
regulations would impel large investors to improve their environment. But
Zanzibar has seen little of this, whether through bad management, official greed
or a lack of negotiating power in a desperate economy.

"Tourism doesn't help the people at all . . . there is a lot of mishandling of
the money, and it does not go to government coffers," says Mohamed Ali Yusuf,
the CUF spokesman. He speaks from the party's threadbare headquarters in the
heart of a shanty town; it is yet to be granted a telephone line after a
four-year wait, so they use mobile phones - one of the island's positive recent
arrivals.

With holidays booked and paid for in Europe, and entertainment provided
in-house, it is difficult for locals to benefit. Prices are rising, but
Zanzibaris get few jobs other than as waiters and cleaners, earning barely $ 50
a month.

Mohamed Madawa, the owner of Madawa Spices just outside the town, welcomes
visitors. They have provided him with a market and helped build his business
from nothing in 1994 to an attractive if basic shop. But he complains that all
he has achieved has been despite a government that he says won't enforce
regulations.

He says a lack of financial support means that local entrepreneurs struggle to
set up businesses, while foreign investors are regularly granted land and
licences. "Foreigners should be made to give a big investment . . . but now
mzungus [white people] are even setting up boats to take tourists to Prison
Island," he says. "That is something we can do, but local people with boats are
standing idle."

It is a perplexing state of affairs for an island once dubbed the metropolis of
East Africa. Zanzibar, whose name alone suggests balmy Arabian nights, spices,
slaves and eastern intrigue, should, by rights, be a thriving commercial hub, a
gateway between Asia and Africa, home to modern-day adventurers and
entrepreneurs.

Its history reads like a fairy-tale. Zanzibar was first settled in the 7th
century by a mixture of Bantu peoples from the African interior, and traders
from China and Malaysia. In the 10th century it was converted to Islam by
Persians from Shiraz, who founded the Zenj empire along the mainland's east
coast, and whose fair skin and blue eyes can still be found among the islanders.

Vasco da Gama's visit in 1498 foreshadowed the arrival of the mighty Portuguese
in the 16th century; the next century saw the advent of Omani Arabs, who brought
cloves to the islands. In 1832, Seyyid Said moved the Omani capital from Muscat
to Zanzibar, and it thrived on the slave and spices trades.

This was the heyday of Zanzibar, held in thrall by luxurious sultans and Tippu
Tip, who, with Stanley, "discovered" much of the African interior. In 1833, the
US opened a consulate on the island, followed by Britain and France; European
power soared after the opening of the Suez Canal, and by the end of the century
the island was de facto under British control.

This period, too, had its contrasts. According to Thomas Pakenham's account in
The Scramble for Africa: "Approaching across the shimmering lagoon, one saw a
city that might have been summoned by Aladdin's lamp, its arches and colonnades,
towers and turrets, flags and flagpoles, reflected upwards in the frenzy of
mirage.

"But there was little sign of the magic once ashore. The palace was an
unpretentious affair of white-washed stucco; beside it, guarded by a rusty
cannon and half in ruins, stood the fort built by his father, Sultan Sayid . . .
Beyond this Oriental city was a vast African shanty town where tens of thousands
of slaves and ex-slaves lived in indescribable squalor. In short, the city was
closer in spirit to Liverpool than Venice." Maybe Zanzibar has always
underperformed its billing.

Still, many visitors are de-lighted to discover the shady charm of the stone
town capital, with its ornate carved doors, to see a ruined palace, or discover
cloves and cardamom on a spice tour. This exotic image is cultivated by places
like Mnemba Island, a $ 500-a-night resort off the north coast which attracts
celebrities.

But for the most part, the government's dream of a rounded cultural holiday
destination remains dominated by the Italian beach clubs, which might be
anywhere on earth.

Gianni Rubbo, the manager of FrancoRosso resort, insists that while he does not
employ as many locals as he would like, his resort does contribute to local
development. He plans, for example, to run an electricity line to Kiwengwa
village (to where the Cairo schoolchildren walk every day).

About 100 metres away, Hajji Noti, a teacher of English, acknowledges the hotels
"sometimes contribute something", but there is little evidence of large-scale
philanthropy. Noti looks longingly at a half-finished building, which is
roofless, with a floor of grass and rubble. He has been told for two years that
it will make a new school- room.

Just beyond is a clean but basic clinic, where nurses face serious problems
around June-August as malaria cases peak and the drugs run out. "I blame the
government," says Ruth Mambosasa from the Tanzanian- owned Shooting Star
restaurant at the other end of the beach. "They are the ones who didn't care
about them. They never made research; they didn't even ask."

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

May 7, 1999, Friday USA EDITION 1

US remains unmoved by Iraq's humanitarian needs

SECTION: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 309 words

From Mr Milan Rai.

Sir, While the US government's sanctions policy towards Iran, Libya and Sudan
appears to be changing ("US drops food and drugs from sanctions", April 29), it
remains as intransigent as ever as regards Iraq - where thousands are dying
every month as a result.

The problem is not that food and medicine are banned but rather that Iraq has
been starved of the funds necessary to repair the "massive deterioration in
basic infrastructure" that the World Food Programme considers to be "the main
reason for outstanding nutritional problems".

The UN panel set up earlier this year to assess the humanitarian situation in
Iraq concluded that: "Regardless of the improvements that might be brought about
in the implementation of the current humanitarian programme . . . the magnitude
of the humanitarian needs is such that they cannot be met within the context of
the parameters set forth in resolution 986 (1995) ['oil-for-food'] and
succeeding resolutions . . . Given the state of the infrastructure, the revenue
required for its rehabilitation is far above the funding level available under
the programme."

The report also noted that given "the near-absolute dependence of Iraq on oil
exports, the precarious state of the oil industry infrastructure, if allowed to
deteriorate further, will have disastrous effects on the country's ability to
cover the costs for basic humanitarian needs".

Last April oil experts commissioned by the UN to look at Iraq's oil industry
concluded: "A sharp increase in production without concurrent expenditure would
severely damage oil-containing rocks and pipeline systems".

The US response has rejected the humanitarian panel's key recommendation - to
permit foreign investment in Iraq's oil infrastructure.

Milan Rai, Voices in the Wilderness, 12 Trinity Road, London N2 8JJ UK

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May 5, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 2

US unmoved by Iraq's human needs

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 300 words

From Mr Milan Rai.

Sir, While the US government's sanctions policy towards Iran, Libya and Sudan
appears to be changing ("US drops food and drugs from sanctions", April 29), it
remains as intransigent as ever as regards Iraq - where thousands are dying
every month as a result.

The problem is not that food and medicine are banned but rather that Iraq has
been starved of the funds necessary to repair the "massive deterioration in
basic infrastructure" that the World Food Programme considers to be "the main
reason for outstanding nutritional problems".

The UN panel set up to assess the humanitarian situation in Iraq concluded that:
"Regardless of the improvements that might be brought about in the
implementation of the current humanitarian programme . ..the magnitude of the
humanitarian needs is such that they cannot be met within the context of the
parameters set forth in resolution 986 (1995) ['oil-for-food'] and succeeding
resolutions . . . Given the state of the infrastructure, the revenue required
for its rehabilitation is far above the funding level available."

It noted that given "the near-absolute dependence of Iraq on oil exports, the
precarious state of the oil industry infrastructure, if allowed to deteriorate
further, will have disastrous effects on the country's ability to cover the
costs for basic humanitarian needs".

Last April oil experts commissioned by the UN to look at Iraq's oil industry
concluded: "A sharp increase in production without concurrent expenditure would
severely damage oil-containing rocks and pipeline systems."

The US response has rejected the humanitarian panel's key recommendation - to
permit foreign investment in Iraq's oil infrastructure.

Milan Rai, Voices in the Wilderness UK, 12 Trinity Road, London N2 8JJ

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April 29, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

US drops drugs and food from sanctions

BYLINE: By Mark Suzman in Washington

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 08

LENGTH: 438 words

DATELINE: Washington

President Bill Clinton yesterday announced that the US would modify its use of
economic sanctions to allow for commercial exports of food and medicine.

The decision marks a significant change in US policy and follows extensive
lobbying by agricultural and humanitarian groups. In recent years the US has
made increasing use of sanctions as a weapon against hostile states, and six
countries - Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, Sudan and North Korea - are now under
embargo.

The president's decision, which was welcomed by Richard Lugar, chair of the
Senate agricultural committee, could pave the way for significant US food
exports to several of the states, including a proposed $ 500m sale to Iran.
However, White House officials said the change would not necessarily include
processed foods or high-tech medical equipment.

Stuart Eizenstat, undersecretary of state, said that the decision was not
designed to help any particular country but was the product of an ongoing review
of US sanctions policy. He said it would apply to all future unilateral
sanctions.

"It has been implemented as part of our overall approach to sanctions reform and
is not directed at any specific country," he said. "In fact the national
security and foreign policy concerns that led to the original decision to impose
comprehensive sanctions on those countries still pertain."

Mr Eizenstat said the move was justified because the main aim of sanctions was
to change the behaviour of hostile regimes, not to deny humanitarian needs.

"Sales of food, medicine and other human necessities do not generally enhance a
nation's military capacities or support terrorism," he said.

"On the contrary, funds spent on agricultural commodities and products are not
available for other, less desirable uses."

White House officials stressed the announcement did not mean the US believed
sanctions were no longer a useful foreign policy tool. The president would
retain the authority to impose restrictions on food and medicine if
circumstances were appropriate, they said.

Individual applications for suitable exports will be considered on a case by
case basis under a licensing system to be worked out by the departments of
State, Commerce and Agriculture in conjunction with the Treasury. All sales will
have to be conducted at prevailing market prices and no open-ended contracts
will be approved.

Any approved exports will generally be restricted to non-government bodies.
However, some sales to parastatals and procurement agencies will be permitted
provided they are not affiliated with the police, army or any other coercive
state bodies.

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April 27, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Abbot wins additional Shell drilling contract
NEWS DIGEST:
OIL AND GAS:

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 177 words

Abbot, the oil services provider, has won a five-year drilling contract from
Shell that could be worth more than £200m. Shares in the Aberdeen-based group
rose 14p to 153p. The new contract lifts the number of North Sea fields where
Abbot operates for Shell UK Exploration and Production from five to nine.
Alasdair Locke, chairman of Abbot, said the new fields were potentially larger
and had a longer life.

The contract, which could be extended, has been won from Deutag, part of
Preussag, the German industrial and leisure conglomerate. Abbot said the deal,
which is also to include extra incentive possibilities, was not likely to affect
profits this year but, with a recovery in the sector expected, higher levels of
activity would lead to improved returns in the medium to longer term.

Mr Locke said the group was hopeful of winning extra work in Iran and in Libya -
a country where it had a strong presence - following the lifting of UN
sanctions. It was also pursuing opportunities in the North Sea and in the
Caspian region. Virginia Marsh

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April 21, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

'Akrona' war game is too close to home:
Montenegrin officials are now questioning their role play in a
Nato computer project

BYLINE: By Guy Dinmore in Belgrade

SECTION: WORLD NEWS: KOSOVO CRISIS; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 569 words

DATELINE: Belgrade

Civil war in Moslem-dominated Akrona has claimed 200,000 lives and displaced 60
per cent of its people. Foreign forces have intervened, a peace deal is signed
and the United States and Nato are seeking to rebuild the Balkan state in their
own image.

Akrona is, of course, a fictitious state, one created in a computer simulated
program used by Nato planners to prepare for a post-war Balkan future. Two
months ago, 30 senior officials from the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro were
taken quietly by the US embassy in Belgrade to The Hague for five days of
computer games involving the program run by Nato's Consultation, Command and
Control Agency, known as C-3.

Each of the 30 officials had a fictional role to play in rebuilding Akrona from
the war that has torn apart the six republics of former Yugoslavia. There was
the president and his ministers, the foreign head of the central bank, the IMF
and World Bank, aid agencies and non- government organisations (NGOs).

The computer program was called SENSE - Synthetic Environments for National
Security Estimates - and designed by the Institute for Defence Analyses, a US
group that describes itself as an NGO.

"We had great fun, mapping the future and playing with lots of money," recalled
one of the participants. At the time they believed they were rehearsing the
future for their own state. Over the past two years Montenegro has moved
steadily closer to independence under its pro- western president, Milo
Djukanovic, arch-rival to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and yesterday's
moves by the Federal Army suggested the game could soon appear all too real.

But looking back, the Montenegrin participants are not so sure what game they
were playing. They note that they were playing at the very time the Kosovo peace
talks were being held in France. The last month of Nato bombing raids across
Yugoslavia has convinced them that Akrona was actually Kosovo.

Akrona, a mountainous state in former Yugoslavia with a Moslem plurality and a
capital called Gudriz, was described in detail in the program's parameters. "The
diverse religious and ethnic split within its own borders. . . led finally to
civil war and ultimately to external intervention," explained the game's
handbook. In an ominous prediction of what was to befall Kosovo, it said nearly
60 per cent of the population was displaced, 60 per cent of housing destroyed,
infrastructure wrecked and 80 per cent of the people dependent on foreign aid.

Akrona's place within the US orbit was well defined: "The US is the major player
in Akrona's world. It broke a logjam by creating the accords, brought shaky
allies aboard and in the end provided the military and security strength. ..
Co-operation between Akrona and the US is close, marred only by occasional US
concerns over the degree of linkage between Akrona and several fundamentalist
Islamic states. . . Libya and Iran."

Private US banks are involved, Nato is "the bulwark of Akronan security" while
the relationship with Russia is "distant" despite Moscow's "positive role" in
peace talks.

"It's scary to think we were puppets," said one participant.

Nato officials had no immediate comment on the Akrona project. One participant
recently telephoned Nato to ask what it was really about and, with Montenegro
itself on the brink of civil war, what to do next. "Be quiet and keep your head
down," came the reply.

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April 21, 1999, Wednesday USA EDITION 1

Wordy
OBSERVER

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 17

LENGTH: 151 words

Wordy

It's good to hear that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is turning to his pen
rather than his sword. Or is it?

First the former coup leader sent a letter to the Supreme Court demanding
special presidential powers - and nearly triggered a constitutional crisis.

Now it's emerged that Chavez has corresponded of late with Carlos the Jackal,
convicted terrorist and the most notorious Venezuelan around.

Carlos, a former house-guest of the governments of Libya and East Germany - and
not the sort of person one would expect a democratic western nation to cuddle up
to - is currently resident in a French jail.

But that didn't stop Chavez from signing off: "with deep faith in the cause and
the mission, for now and for ever, Hugo Chavez Frias." The letter, he's since
explained, was purely a humanitarian gesture. Who'll be the next object of his
sympathy? Observer dreads to think.

LOAD-DATE: April 21, 1999

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

April 20, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Gadaffi 'brokers peace'
NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 06

LENGTH: 147 words

DATELINE: Cairo

CONGO

Gadaffi 'brokers peace'

Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, has brokered a peace agreement between the
Ugandan and Congolese presidents, aimed at ending the nine-month war in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Libyan state media said. But the Congolese rebels
said they were not party to the deal and it was meaningless without them.

Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda, and Laurent Kabila, his Congolese
counterpart, signed an agreement in Libya on Sunday which is intended to bring a
ceasefire, the deployment of an African peacekeeping force and the withdrawal of
foreign troops from Congo. The Congo war now involves troops from Zimbabwe,
Angola, Namibia and Chad fighting alongside President Kabila's Congolese army,
against Rwanda, Uganda and rebels of the Congolese Rally for Democracy. Neither
Rwanda nor the RCD has signed the deal. Mark Huband, Cairo

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April 17, 1999, Saturday W EDITION 1

There must be 50 ways to leave the millennium
UPDATE:

SECTION: TRAVEL; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 679 words

NEW DAWN: Enter the new millennium in luxury with Orient-Express: black-tie
dinner in New York, private jet to New Orleans and the Windsor Court Hotel for
four nights, including January 1, then four nights in La Samanna in the French
West Indies. Maximum 21 people; $ 21,000 each (tel: +44 0171-805 5067). If that
doesn't appeal, there are any number of other ways you could see out the
1900s... At North Cape, Europe's northernmost point, on a Norwegian coastal
voyage (call Scandinavian Travel Service tel: +44 0171-559 6666); aurora
borealis laid on (maybe). Relax at New Zealand's celebrated Huka Lodge, with
jet-boating, wine talks, fishing and dawn breakfast on a mountain top; US$
11,750 per couple for a five-day programme (tel: +64 7 378 5791). Cruise past
the Eiffel Tower while enjoying a seven-course dinner on a four-night Seine
cruise with VFB (tel: +44 01242-240336). The Lanesborough hotel in London (tel:
+44 0171-259 5599) will hold two parties: black-tie, gastronomic, Rita Coolidge,
childminders, £2,000; and black-and-white, Prohibition speakeasy, live jazz,
£800. Or greet the 2000s in Barbados by Concorde with Elegant Resorts: weekly
flights (tel: +44 01244-897111).

QUERY FOLK: Tunisia, fresh from marketing itself as the country where The
English Patient was filmed, will soon be known as the setting for Star Wars
again. Among questions received by its tourist office (tel: 0171-224 5561): Is
Tunisia foreign? Are there shops? Should I take my blue jumper? (Official
answers: Yes, Yes, If you like.)

WISHING AND HOPPING: Greek Island Hopping does just what it says on the cover:
full reports on beaches and tavernas Ionic, Saronic and Sporadic, and the
unpredictable ferries and their timetables, and a lively sense of humour, too.
From Thomas Cook publishing; £12.99.

KOREA MOVE: Looking for cheap accommodation in Korea? Try the Budget Inns
Reservations Centre in Seoul for rooms from £25 (tel: +82 2 729 9498/9, or look
up www.knto.or.kr).

BEAST BEHAVIOUR: Look for red kites and griffin vultures, marmots and pottoks,
on a Pyrenees Adventures walking holiday (tel: 01433-621498) in remote France.
Very educational: a marmot is a sort of big squirrel, a pottok is a Basque
horse.

BUILDING SIGHTS: Take a tour of the work of 20th century architects with Martin
Randall Travel (tel: 0181-742 3355): Frank Lloyd Wright in the American Midwest
(May 24), or Aalto's work in Finland (July 9).

TAKING A DIVE: Among the requests for cover received in 1998 by Primary Direct
Travel Insurance: playing underwater hockey and running across the Sahara for
seven days. Worst country for holidaymakers' claims: Spain.

LAST FRONTIER: Airwaves claims to be the only UK operator offering a tour of
Papua New Guinea - meeting mountain warriors, cruising down the Sepik River,
staying at the luxury Karawari Lodge. Prices from £2,690 (tel: +44 0181-875
1188). SOW WHAT: Everyone can be Capability Brown with Acorn Activities: instead
of spending a break admiring others' gardens, learn how to design them yourself.
Weekend courses in April, May and October teach garden design and planting of
flower gardens; £100 each (tel: 01432-830083).

IN-DEPTH JUDGMENT: With the go-ahead from a US court, WildWings is offering
mini-submarine trips to see the wreck of the Titanic 400 miles off Canada. Small
groups only - no wonder, really, at £22,779 a person. (Details from tel: +44
0117-984 8040.) ON THE ICE: Highlight of an 11-day Antarctic Encounter cruise
with Guerba (tel: +44 01373-826611) will be the chance to spend a night camping
out on polar ice. Wildlife spotting, iceberg dodging, lectures and on-board
saunas also on the menu. Departures in December and February.

TRAILFINDERS, independent travel specialist, opens in the City of London: 1
Threadneedle St (tel: 0171-628 7628/2345).

LIBYA is to go back on British Airways schedules, three times a week.

AA has begun publishing Touring Club of Italy's excellent guidebooks in Britain
- Italy, Rome, Milan and Turin among them; £11.99.

John Westbrooke

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April 16, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

UN is once again option of last resort

BYLINE: By Laura Silber in New York

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 579 words

DATELINE: New York

The United Nations appears again to be emerging as the diplomatic option of last
resort, in spite of its troubled history in the Balkans.

Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, has been meeting European leaders in an
attempt to find a settlement for Kosovo. Last week he urged Slobodan Milosevic,
Yugoslav president, to take five steps towards ending the war. His intervention
may also help soothe Russian ire.

But the Security Council remains paralysed by divisions among its five permanent
members, with Russia on one side and the US and the UK on the other. Nato did
not even try to win approval for its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, aware
that the divisions would block any action.

Indeed, since the US-British attack on Iraq last November the Council has been
all but silent.

UN involvement in Kosovo now centres on the role of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees as the chief international organisation responsible for alleviating the
refugee crisis, and the efforts of Mr Annan in exploring avenues for a solution
to the conflict.

When there is a settlement the Security Council is likely to approve a
peacekeeping force in the way that it endorsed a mandate for the despatch of
Nato-led forces, including Russia, to Bosnia. But this would be largely
symbolic.

The UN could even provide an "umbrella force" to help overcome Mr Milosevic's
opposition to a Nato force, which is sure to have hardened considerably during
the bombing campaign.

Mindful of the UN's experience in Bosnia, however, western diplomats say the UN
would not play a dominant role in Kosovo were a peacekeeping force to be
dispatched.

"There will not be another Unprofor," said one, referring to the UN Protection
Force deployed in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. In that newly independent war-torn
country the UN was hampered by its impossible mandate - securing the peace when
there was no peace to secure.

The Blue Helmets are best remembered for failing to halt the slaughter of some
7,000 Moslem men in July 1995 when Serb forces overran Srebrenica, a Moslem
enclave declared a UN "safe area".

Mr Annan's return to centre-stage reflects his belief that he should help find a
solution, not that the UN should play a starring role.

"The secretary-general decided that he had to try to do something. But he did
not take the initiative without carefully consulting members of the Contact
Group", charged with finding a solution to the conflict, said an Annan aide.

In the past Mr Annan has used his position to give isolated, embattled leaders
"a ladder down which to climb", as he told UN officials. Efforts in March 1998
to avert military intervention in Iraq succeeded only in postponing western
airstrikes for nine months. But persistence with another strongman, Muammer
Gadaffi of Libya, paid off last month when the UN orchestrated the long-sought
hand-over of two Libyans suspected of the mid-air bombing over Lockerbie.

European leaders, and even the US, have welcomed Mr Annan's latest mission, but
they rule out appeasing Mr Milosevic. "He is providing a bit of moral
leadership, contributing to pressure on Belgrade and signalling the UN's
availability at a time when we are looking for a solution," said a diplomat.

A statement by the secretary-general "pretty much supported Nato objectives but
it managed to preserve an element of neutrality". It is, however, precisely the
UN's neutrality that has relegated the 185-member world body to the margins.

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April 16, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

Italians head for Tripoli
NEWS DIGEST

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 203 words

DATELINE: Rome

LIBYAN CONTRACTS

Italians head for Tripoli

Italian companies have been rushing to Tripoli this week to open ties with the
Libyan government after the United Nations decided last week to lift sanctions.
Around 20 leading industrial figures - including representatives from
Confindustria, Italy's business federation; Eni, the oil and gas group;
Finmeccanica, the industrial and defence conglomerate; and Impregilo, Fiat's
infrastructure building unit - have been in Libya this week seeking to re-open
commercial ties.

A new group for the promotion of trade, the Libyan Italian Joint Company, has
been formed. Representatives of Alitalia, the Italian national airline, have
also been to Tripoli to inspect airport facilities before starting scheduled
flights betwen Rome and the Libyan capital on May 1. Lamberto Dini, Italy's
foreign minister, has helped promote economic and political ties with Libya
after Col Muammer Gadaffi, Libyan leader, handed over the two Lockerbie bombing
suspects. Italian businesses hope to secure more than $ 15bn of reconstruction
projects that Libya is planning to put to tender. They are also hoping to reopen
plans for a gas pipeline from Libya to Italy. James Blitz, Rome

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April 15, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Meeting of minds:
PERSONAL VIEW WILLIAM WALLACE:
The US and the EU must resolve their cultural differences if they
want to make any real progress on international co-operation and
trade:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 30

LENGTH: 1132 words

The US and its European allies are now militarily committed in south-eastern
Europe and about to embark on the new "Millennium Round" of trade negotiations.

Economic setbacks in East Asia and Latin America and political stalemate in
Japan make transatlantic co-operation even more central to an open global
economy and a stable world order. Yet the gap in mutual understanding between US
policymakers and their European counterparts is wide.

The Congressional mood on trade relations is ugly. "The embers of protectionism
are clearly smouldering on Capitol Hill," Bruce Stokes wrote in the National
Journal after the House's approval of legislation on steel quotas last month,
"ready to burst into flames with the slightest downturn in America's economy."

Congressmen who attended a recent Transatlantic Policy Network conference in
Italy portrayed themselves as a threatened minority of free traders, squeezed
between rightwing isolationists and leftwing protectionists.

They see America's widening trade deficit with western Europe as evidence in
itself of European protectionism, aggravated by the "output gap" in the German
economy which - to them - follows from Germany's failure to reform its labour
market and social policies towards the more efficient Anglo-Saxon model. They
cite the repeated failures to open European agricultural markets, evident yet
again at the March European Council in Berlin, as demonstrating an overall
effort to bend the rules of world trade to European advantage. The beef hormone
issue, one remarked, "is just a ruse to refuse our beef".

On broader economic and political issues, Washington politicians also complain
that Europe is not pulling its weight. They see themselves as "running a
monetary policy not just for the US but for the world" (as one Washington
commentator put it) in sharp contrast to the introverted perspective of the
European Central Bank; acting as importer of last resort to keep the world
economy growing, while Europeans drag their feet even on opening their markets
to eastern Europe.

European incoherence on important issues is a constant irritant. US officials
have pushed their European counterparts to share strategic approaches to Russia,
Ukraine, Turkey, central Asia and China, but have received only muffled
responses.

Part of this bill of complaint against the European allies is justified. Failure
to agree on the agricultural reform package at Berlin was a triumph for France,
at the expense both of European Union enlargement negotiations and of wider
interests in the Millennium

Round. In transatlantic negotiations Americans find themselves facing both the
European Commission, which is responsible for traditional trade issues but not
for the widening agenda of services, environmental and social policies, and EU
member governments, with a different government in the presidency every six
months.

Finland promises to focus on European strategy towards Russia in its forthcoming
EU presidency. But its approach confirms US scepticism about parochial European
governments, by defining relations with Russia as part of Europe's "northern
dimension", as if Russia only had a maritime frontier on the Baltic.

But American discontent with Europe goes far beyond this. There is an alarming
mixture of resentment, self-righteousness and plain misinformation in the
Washington debate. Determination to retaliate against Fortress Europe every time
the EU wavers on World Trade Organisation rulings is accompanied by
Congressional unilateralism, often in response to domestic lobbying.

Two-thirds of the world's population is now covered by some form of US economic
sanctions. If European governments (unwisely) pushed the Iran- Libya Sanctions
Act, or US legislation on trade with Cuba, to WTO trade panels, Americans would
insist that political priorities must override legal determination. Yet where
European domestic politics constrains trade negotiations, as on beef hormones
and genetically modified organisms, Washington is narrowly litigious.

Triumphalism about the American economic model is accompanied by aggressive
attacks on European social capitalism, by Democrats as well as Republicans.

With environmental issues and sustainable development on the agenda for the
Millennium Round, there is little understanding across the Atlantic that a
European Union which has a population 40 per cent larger than the US, but
crowded into a third of the space, must be more sensitive to social order,
environmental preservation and even aircraft noise.

Washington's self-image of coherent and strategic foreign policy leadership is
far away from European experience of disjointed demands from different
Washington agencies. The US Trade Representative announced the details of
sanctions against Britain in the banana dispute the day after British planes had
supported the US in renewed strikes on Iraq.

American relations with Europe are managed through many different channels:
through Nato, through bilateral links with European states and through
six-monthly EU-US summits. These last have the least political resonance in
Euro-sceptic Washington and the most precarious place in policymakers'
calendars. "We have to fight for every one," an American diplomat warned a
European delegation.

The White House sees Nato as its preferred framework for US-European relations,
with the US as alliance leader and the European allies following that lead. Here
too, however, there is resentment: over Europe's deficient military
capabilities, evident yet again over Kosovo, and European unwillingness to
accept that American leadership extends to political strategy outside Europe.

The Washington consensus is that "the United States should draw Europe, over
time, much further into a global strategic partnership to help shape the
international system in the new era", as a new Council on Foreign Relations
report puts it. But this is assumed to be a partnership on American terms, most
of all in the Middle East.

Some European officials despair of their chances of creating a more sympathetic
understanding of European interests in a political system which is driven by the
desperate search for campaign finance and by the power of domestic lobbies.

Yet European governments cannot afford to allow transatlantic relations to drift
apart. With a succession of summits over the next three months, with the
Franco-British defence initiative edging towards a European group within Nato,
with a series of difficult trade disputes under way, European heads of
government should have more effective presentation of European approaches and
interests to the American audience high on their agenda.

The author is professor of international relations at the London School of
Economics

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April 15, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Soul-searching in Moscow:
The Kosovo crisis has stirred up old Slavophile feelings in
post-Soviet Russia. But, says John Thornhill, not all Russians
support the Serbs:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 30

LENGTH: 1072 words

The anti-American feelings of one graffiti writer in Russia were abundantly
clear when Nato warplanes first struck Yugoslavia. "Good Clinton = Dead
Clinton," the protestor scrawled on the underside of a Moscow bridge.

Since Nato's bombing began three weeks' ago, Russia has been convulsed by moral
outrage, national humiliation and fear as the conflict escalates. Opinion polls
show that 90 per cent of Russians oppose Nato's air campaign. There are calls
for sending volunteers to fight for Serbia and supplying arms to Belgrade.

This upsurge of patriotic hysteria has been milked by Russia's mainstream
politicians and applauded by hardline nationalists. Even Russia's liberal
politicians, who have pushed Russia to embrace western values and institutions,
have been shocked by Nato's actions.

Yegor Gaidar, the liberal former prime minister, argues Nato's air strikes are
an offensive action against a sovereign state without proper authorisation from
the United Nations. He argues that few in the west realise that Nato's assault
will have alarming political repercussions in Russia. It will almost certainly
strengthen nationalists in the run-up to December's parliamentary elections.
"There is nothing more important for Russia and Russian democracy than to bring
hostilities to a stop," he says.

But perhaps the most alarming aspect of the reaction to the Balkans crisis is
the possibility that the anti-western backlash could grow to the point where
Russia turned itself into a "rogue" state, allying itself with Iraq, Iran,
Serbia, and Libya to oppose US hegemony at every turn. Russian liberals warn
that the country might not be powerful enough to restart the cold war, but it
could certainly encourage the growth of a new world disorder.

For evidence of what Russia could do, consider the views of Viktor Ilyukhin, the
radical Communist MP and chairman of the parliamentary security committee. He is
one of many nationalists who argue that Russia has gained little from
co-operating with the west and would be better off opposing it.

He argues that Russia should unilaterally lift the international arms embargo on
Yugoslavia, supply Belgrade with anti-aircraft missiles, and target its nuclear
rockets at new Nato countries, including Hungary, Poland, and the Czech
Republic. "This is a barbarous war. A war to annihilate the economic potential
of acountry and to kill peaceful citizens," he says.

The strength of feeling in Russia can be partly explained by its sense of
humiliation at the loss of superpower status. It is painful for Russians to
accept that their economy has shrunk to one-fiftieth of the size of the US
economy, and that Moscow can no longer control events in its own backyard.

In part, Russia's reaction may have been determined by its foggy historical
instincts. The bombing of Russia's Serb "brothers", who share close cultural and
religious ties, has revived memories of the 19th-century pan-Slav movement.
Though dimmed by almost 80 years of Communist internationalism, such sentiments
are again finding a modern resonance in proposals to create a union between
Russia, Belarus and Yugoslavia and ward off "Moslem extremism".

The belligerence has also been accompanied by a great deal of muddled thinking,
and the difficult realisation that Russia's historical loyalties now clash with
its dependence on western aid. Boris Yeltsin, the president, has been heard to
mutter about retargeting Russia's nuclear missiles at Nato countries, while
continuing to press western governments to approve fresh loans from the
International Monetary Fund. Russia has also sent lorries of humanitarian aid to
Belgrade, while pleading with the European Union and Washington to step up their
assistance programmes to Moscow.

But as this mixed response suggests, Russia is not a monolithic country - and
for every Slavophile proclaiming brotherhood with the Serbs, there is someone
else cautioning against anti-westernism. Indeed, in the past few days, some of
Russia's policymakers have come to realise that the anti-western hysteria may
have gone too far. Yevgeny Primakov, the prime minister and one of Washington's
fiercest critics, has tried to rein in the extremists. He says Russia will not
turn its back on economic reforms nor revert to isolationism.

The Russian foreign ministry, meanwhile, has been reassuring western embassies
that - no matter how strongly it feels about Yugoslavia - it does not want to
break off relations or take any military action. Indeed, western diplomats
suggest Russia now has a real opportunity to enhance its international prestige
by playing a constructive role in resolving the Yugoslav conflict.

Moscow's media, which carried overwhelmingly pro-Serb coverage in the early
stages of the conflict, has been moderating its stance. In particular, NTV, the
private television channel controlled by Vladimir Gusinsky, the business tycoon,
has become studiously non-partisan. The channel's reporting from Kosovo's
borders has highlighted the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe and
contradicted the Russian foreign ministry's line that the Kosovar Albanians are
simply fleeing from Nato bombing. "It is possible that the deep fear of being
drawn into a war has forced our journalists to search for - and our compatriots
to demand - not only simple and clear, but increasingly complex information,"
the Itogi news magazine concluded this week.

That remark might apply to westerners looking at Russia's own response to the
Kosovo crisis. As Minitimer Shaimiev, president of the semi-autonomous republic
of Tatarstan, has reminded the Kremlin, Russia is itself a multi-ethnic state
with 26m Moslem citizens. Mr Shaimiev raised the frightening prospect that
Russian volunteers fighting for their Serb brothers in Yugoslavia could clash
with their Moslem compatriots intent on defending the Kosovars.

In one sense, Russia's reaction to the Yugoslav crisis shows how slenderly the
country knows itself. Post-Soviet Russia has not yet developed a true national
identity nor clarified its strategic interests. Yet in another sense, the debate
within Moscow emphasises the degree to which Russia has already become an open
and pluralistic society. Political diversity can breed confusion but also,
perhaps, a greater sense of social responsibility.

One person, at least, recently saw fit to erase the anti-Clinton graffiti on
that Moscow bridge.

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April 15, 1999, Thursday SURVEY EDITION 1

Eagle eyes deny rapacious bent:
Bold entry into war-torn Gulf countries gave Total a headstart on
US rivals

SECTION: SURVEY - FINANCIAL TIMES WORLD ENERGY REVIEW; Pg. 06

LENGTH: 584 words

Total, the French oil group, has made operating in politically sensitive
countries something of a speciality. The company's long-term cultivation of its
relations with Iran is a case in point.

Total's policy came under the spotlight in 1995, when it stepped in to take over
a contract to develop the Sirri A and Sirri E fields in the Gulf that Tehran had
originally awarded to Conoco of the US. Total's planned investments in Iran -
which included the $ 2bn South Pars offshore gas contract signed in 1997 -
sparked a transatlantic row between the European Union and the US, which after
the passage of the controversial Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (Ilsa) threatened to
apply unilateral sanctions against the company. The threat was withdrawn in May
1998, when Washington issued a waiver to Total as part of a wider understanding
between the US and the EU.

Senior Total executives insist the high-profile episode was not merely an
example of opportunism by the company: "We were not just vultures," says
Christophe de Margerie, the president of Total's Middle East division. Total's
quick reaction had nothing to do "with Conoco or the State Department". Rather,
it was the result of a long-term strategic policy to target the Gulf, where the
company has long had a significant presence, and which accounts for a big
portion of the company's oil production.

"At the end of the Gulf War nobody wanted to invest in the area," said Mr de
Margerie. "So we decided to be active in countries such as Iran, Iraq and
Qatar." He insists that Total did not deliberately target Iran and Iraq because
they were out of bounds for US competitors: "Historically, we've used our
competitive position independent of what Americans could or could not do."

Total's links with Iran stretch back well before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Between 1954 and 1979 Total had a six per cent stake in the foreign oil
consortium operating in the country, and was lifting between 200,000 and 360,000
barrels a day.

Mr de Margerie says Total is keen to expand its presence in Iran, although he
has been critical of some aspects of the buy-back arrangements which govern
foreign oil investment in the country.

He believes the contract duration is too short for many oil companies, and would
like to see the foreign companies able to operate the fields for a longer
period. At present foreign operating ends when a field is commissioned.

Total would also like to see more flexibility introduced into contracts,
especially in those that cover big enhanced oil recovery projects: "When it
comes to big, onshore, mature fields which need complex enhanced oil recovery,
how can you say in advance what is needed and what is best for us and Iran? We
need more flexibility. We need the capacity to change."

Total has also found that at times Iranian officials are reluctant to take
decisions or to assume personal responsibility for them. That, Mr de Margerie
believes, is in part a carryover from the isolation in which the industry has
operated for many years: "Iran has been out of the international oil business
for 20 years. They've missed the opportunity to exchange views and ideas."

As for eventual US involvement in Iran, Mr de Margerie says he would welcome it,
especially the presence of US oil service companies and contractors. He says
their absence from the Iranian market means foreign companies operating there
are burdened with higher development costs than would otherwise be the case.

Robert Corzine

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April 13, 1999, Tuesday USA EDITION 1

Reorganisation at Saga
PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 209 words

DATELINE: Oslo

Reorganisation at Saga

Saga Petroleum, Norway's third largest oil company, has abolished 14 of its 28
directorships under a sweeping restructuring programme to improve its profits
amid low oil prices.

The company has halved the number of its units from 28 to 14 and reorganised
into four business areas, with only 10 of the previous directors surviving the
reorganisation.

Torgeir Opdahl, one of four new directors, will leave his job as head of Saga's
Libya operations to lead the new business area, international. The remaining
three areas, Norwegian continental shelf north, Norwegian continental shelf
south, and gas and oil will be led by Gunnar Eide, Oivind Rue, and Olav
Skalmeraas respectively.

The changes are aimed at simplifying and improving the efficiency at Saga as
part of an overall restructuring in the oil company, which aims to sell up to
NKr2bn ($ 256m) in assets this year and save more than NKr400m in annual
savings, partly from losing 430 jobs by July.

Within the new structure, Saga has regrouped into four technical function areas.
Terje Hagevang will head exploration; Erik Jenssen, petroleum technology &
drilling; Thomas Bernt, engineering; and John Hvidsten, production and
logistics. Valeria Skold, Oslo

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April 10, 1999, Saturday W EDITION 1

When do we have a legal right to bomb?:
INTERNATIONAL LAW:
David Wedgwood Benn is hopeful about enforcement of the
international rule of law

SECTION: OFF CENTRE; Pg. 08

LENGTH: 1270 words

The extradition proceedings against General Augusto Pinochet of Chile have
already produced one result of enormous importance. They have created a new
public awareness of the reality of international law.

The Nato bombing of Serbia, however, has raised another issue of international
law which still gets less attention than it deserves: in what circumstances is
it legally permissible for one state or group of states to use force against
another? Is this essentially a matter for discretion or are there any binding
rules?

The issue arose last August when the US bombed alleged terrorist bases in
Afghanistan and Sudan in reprisal for the bomb attacks on the US embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania. The Anglo-American bombing of Iraq highlighted the issue
even more sharply. And perhaps even more important in the long run is the plan
to give Nato a new strategic concept, now that the cold war is over.

This, too, has international legal implications. How far can one alliance
unilaterally assume the role of world policeman?

These questions are of more than theoretical importance. Laws of whatever kind
have to be developed with at least a minimum of consistency. If, for example,
the US had the legal right to bomb Sudan last summer, did Britain have a similar
right to bomb Libya in reprisal for the downing of the flight over Lockerbie?

In several respects states and individual citizens have similar rights,
including that of self-defence. An individual threatened with mugging or faced
with a neighbour from hell is entitled to take counter-measures without waiting
for the police to arrive. But the measures must be strictly proportionate to the
threat.

And any individual who oversteps the permitted limits of self-defence can get
into the most serious trouble.

International law is, of course, on a different footing, since there is no
permanent mechanism for enforcement.

But it could acquire such a mechanism, so long as the great powers voluntarily
comply. In the post-cold-war world, where conflicts are largely regional and do
not involve great power rivalries, the prospects for an international rule of
law should, in theory at least, have improved.

Provided the main powers agree among themselves on how to deal with regional
conflicts (as happened in the 1991 Gulf war) then a genuinely new opportunity
arises.

It becomes possible for the first time to achieve a combination of force and law
on the world scene. This was a theme powerfully developed by Senator Daniel
Moynihan, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, in his book On the Law
of Nations, published in 1990.

Today, the rules governing the use of force by states are the subject of a
well-established - even if incomplete - set of principles. The key rules stem
from article 2 of the United Nations Charter, which generally outlaws the use of
force in settling disputes and from article 51 which recognises the "inherent
right" of states to self-defence. The latter right represents the only clear-cut
case in which a state can use force unilaterally. Apart from that, the only
clearly established right to use force is under the authority of the UN.

In the past, the west has usually complied with these rules. The setting up of
Nato in 1949, the Korean war of 1950 and the 1991 Gulf war were all fully
justified under the UN Charter by the right of self-defence.

The Nato presence in Bosnia also has a firm legal basis, having been sanctioned
both by the UN Security Council and by the Bosnian government. And it is worth
recalling that in 1980 just after the American embassy staff in Tehran had been
taken hostage, President Jimmy Carter sought, and won, a judgment against Iran
at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

However, during the 1970s and especially in the 1980s during the Reagan years,
there was a subtle shift in the US attitude towards international law - as
Moynihan clearly demonstrates. In the past, he pointed out, the US had been
firmly committed to promoting a world rule of law - in principle even if not
always in practice.

But this was eroded for several reasons. First, US opinion turned against the
UN, largely as a result of the anti-American and anti-Israeli tone of
non-aligned states in the General Assembly. At the same time, American rhetoric
about the Soviet "evil empire" created the entirely misleading impression that
world communism was winning the cold war.

In 1984, Jeane Kirkpatrick, the then US representative at the UN, went on record
as saying that the US could not practise "unilateral compliance" with the UN
Charter when other states violated it with impunity.

US actions during this time - such as the invasion of Grenada (a member of the
Commonwealth) in 1983 on the pretext of preventing a Cuban takeover - all
reflected this diminished respect for international law.

It was also during the 1980s that the US Senate began refusing to authorise the
payment of dues owing to the UN - a clear breach of US obligations under the UN
Charter.

All this is an important subtext to the Nato intervention in Kosovo. Alongside
an open debate about international law, there is a muted debate as to whether
international law really matters. There is no legally clear authority for a
"humanitarian" use of force unsanctioned by the UN.

And even if a legal justification does exist this still leaves a big question
unresolved. What kind of a precedent is Kosovo meant to create? There are
influential forces which hope to use the Kosovo tragedy as a first step towards
decoupling Nato from the UN.

If Nato is indeed to free itself from the constraint of the UN, it will need
more than a new mission statement - because the original Nato treaty is
expressly linked to the UN Charter. Article 7, in particular, states that the
treaty shall in no way be interpreted as affecting obligations under the UN
Charter; and it reaffirms the "primary responsibility of the Security Council"
for the maintenance of peace. If the intention is to change this, then the
treaty itself will require radical amendment.

Some people may try to justify such a change on the grounds that the UN is
paralysed by the Russian veto on the Security Council. But this need not be
insuperable. If Nato claims to be acting in the name of the international
community it can still seek a vote in the UN General Assembly.

And if it claims to have international law on its side, there is nothing to
prevent it referring its arguments to the International Court of Justice which
is empowered to give advisory judgments.

Legalistic arguments at the present time may seem irrelevant, given the scale of
the Kosovo emergency. But in the long run they will have to be sorted out. And
in any case, international law is far from being on the decline. The Council of
Europe, which adjudicates on human rights, has expanded beyond the wildest
expectations of those who founded it in 1949.

It now embraces 40 member countries and has a jurisdiction stretching from
western Europe to Vladivostok. No less remarkable has been the rise of Amnesty
International, the human rights group, which played a key part in the Pinochet
case.

All of this prompts one final point. Even when politicians lack the will to
defend international law there still remains one powerful agency: the media.
Without sustained media support, Amnesty International could never have
succeeded as it did.

And it is journalists above all who have the power to prevent international law
being dismantled by stealth.

* David Wedgwood Benn is a former member of the BBC World Service

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April 8, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Rome backs Libya's rehabilitation

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 44 words

Rome backs Libya's rehabilitation

Italy is pressing for Libya to be admitted to a ministerial meeting in Stuttgart
next week, its first step towards re-entering the international community,
following Tripoli's handover of the Lockerbie bomb suspects. Page 5

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April 8, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Italy champions rehabilitation of Gadaffi's Libya

BYLINE: By James Blitz in Rome

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 386 words

DATELINE: Rome

Libya could take a first step towards re-entering the international community
next week amid hopes in Rome that it will attend a summit of European Union and
Mediterranean countries on free trade and security.

Following Tripoli's handover of two Libyans accused of the 1988 bombing of a Pan
Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, the Italian government is pressing for
Libyan officials to be admitted to a ministerial meeting in Stuttgart next
Friday that will discuss the latest stages in the so-called "Barcelona process".

The EU-Mediterranean talks are aimed at setting up a regional free trade
agreement by the end of the next decade. Libya's inclusion in these talks would
be the latest indication of Italy's efforts to bring Tripoli into the
international fold.

Earlier this week, Lamberto Dini, Italian foreign minister, flew to Libya for
talks with the country's leader Col Muammer Gadaffi, just one day after the two
Lockerbie suspects were flown to the Netherlands for trial. His visit was the
first to Tripoli by a European official in seven years.

At the same time, the United Nations suspended the sanctions that have been
imposed on Libya since 1992. The UN move led to the re-opening yesterday of the
first commercial flights from Libya to neighbouring countries in seven years.

According to Italian foreign ministry officials, the UN security council must
decide within 90 days whether to end the sanctions completely. This, in turn,
means that the US - as a security council member - must decide whether to retain
its own sanctions.

Mr Dini said late on Tuesday night that he thought "there was desire in
Washington to move to a normalisation of bilateral relations with Tripoli," and
that "difficult issues regarding terrorism have now been overcome." However,
some experts on the region believe the US will retain its sanctions all the
same.

By striving to bring Libya into the world community, the Italian government is
hoping that its companies will gain from trade with Tripoli, particularly in
oil.

Libya has oil reserves of about 30bn barrels, about the same as the North Sea.
Eni, based in Rome, produces about 16 per cent of Libya's oil and is seeking
customers to back investment in new gas production from the Wafa field on
Libya's coast. and a pipeline under the sea

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April 8, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

HSBC takes an offshore dip
OBSERVER

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 212 words

With tentacles spreading from Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro, HSBC can already claim
to be the banking empire on which the sun never sets. Now it's gone big-time in
tiny Malta, making a tempting offer to take the island's largest bank off the
government's hands.

Finance minister John Dalli looked a happy man as he announced the sale
yesterday, part of the government's plan for selling off a series of government
assets. The deal seems to have been done in double-quick time and should be
concluded in a matter of days. But unlike most of HSBC's recent acquisitions,
Mid-Med Bank is both prosperous and dominant in its home market, so the
prospects for domestic growth look somewhat limited.

So why bother? HSBC officials declined to dignify with an answer Observer's
unworthy suggestion that maybe some of its board members fancy taking time out
on the sun-kissed beaches of Gozo. Island watchers believe that the answer lies
due south in northern Africa, where Libya, having turned over its Lockerbie bomb
suspects into the hands of Scottish justice, is about to be welcomed back into
the international community. On the same day that the HSBC deal emerged, British
Airways announced it was reintroducing flights to Tripoli. Swiftly soar the
wings of commerce.

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

April 7, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Libyans charged with murder
LOCKERBIE BOMBING SUSPECTS APPEAR BEFORE SCOTTISH SHERIFF IN THE
NETHERLANDS:

BYLINE: By Gordon Cramb in Amsterdam

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 08

LENGTH: 502 words

DATELINE: Amsterdam

The two Libyans suspected of causing the 1988 Pan Am air crash at Lockerbie in
Scotland were yesterday charged with murder, conspiracy to murder and breaches
of UK aviation law. Their appearance before a Scottish sheriff in the
Netherlands marked the end of a protracted international effort to bring them to
trial.

In the five-minute hearing at Camp Zeist, a military base east of Utrecht, the
men were not asked to enter a plea to the charges. The next stage will be their
committal for trial, which has to take place by Thursday next week. Under an
Anglo-Dutch treaty, 100 acres (40 hectares) at Zeist are Scottish soil during
the procedure which could take more than a year.

The Libyan government of Muammer Gadaffi handed the suspects over to the United
Nations in Tripoli, the capital, on Monday. Libya had resisted western
insistence that any trial take place in Britain or the US, whose nationals were
in the majority among the 270 who died.

The suspects' departure brought the immediate suspension of UN sanctions against
Libya, imposed in 1992 and tightened the following year. Libyan Arab Airlines,
the national flag carrier grounded since then by a ban on air traffic, said it
would have a schedule of international flights ready as soon as today.

Re-equipping the airline is among the contracts being eyed by western companies,
with British Aerospace known to have been in discussions. Oil installations,
ports and other infrastructure also need to be upgraded, in an operation in
which Col Gadaffi has promised priority to Italian companies.

Lamberto Dini, Italian foreign minister, arrived in Tripoli yesterday promising
support for Libya's accession to the Euro-Mediterranean Forum, aimed at
promoting north-south political and economic co-operation. The Lockerbie
suspects were flown out on an aircraft loaned to the UN by Italy, which as the
former colonial power in Libya had been among countries seeking a solution to
the trial impasse.

Saudi Arabia and South Africa also helped persuade Col Gadaffi to accept a trial
in the Netherlands for the two, who are alleged to have been officers in his
intelligence service. If convicted of planting the suitcase bomb, Abdel Basset
Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah face life sentences which they
would serve in Scotland under UN supervision.

Hans Corell, the chief UN legal counsel, who escorted the men to Dutch custody,
said on Monday that the Libyan lawyers with whom he had negotiated had expressed
no doubts about the independence of the Scottish court which will hear the case.
"On the contrary, it was referred to with respect."

Three judges will adjudicate, in the first Scottish murder case in modern times
without a jury. The committal proceedings will, like yesterday's initial
appearance, be presided over in closed session by sheriff Graham Cox. The trial
will be open to the public. "It will be a fairly big building, though probably
not big enough to cope with demand," the Scottish Office said.

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April 6, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Foreign companies set to gain as sanctions end

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: LOCKERBIE; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 666 words

DATELINE: Cairo

The handover of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing cleared the way
for the suspension of United Nations sanctions against Tripoli, opening up the
possibility for foreign companies to take big stakes in infrastructure and
transport projects worth up to $ 14bn (£8.6bn).

The sanctions regime imposed by the UN Security Council on December 1 1993 froze
Libyan assets held abroad, with the exception of oil and gas earnings, and
banned the sale to Libya of equipment for use in downstream oil and gas sector
operations. The sanctions also imposed a ban on flights to and from Libya, and
led to the suspension of operations by Libyan Arab Airlines (LLA), the national
carrier.

British Aerospace of the UK has been in discussions with Libya aimed at securing
a $ 9.6m deal to refurbish LLA's fleet by providing new aircraft, as well as
training pilots and technicians and reconstructing airports. Discussion of
post-sanctions business was deemed by the UK government not to have broken the
sanctions regime.

Libyan plans to build a new 2,178km railway the length of its coastline and
inland are expected to lead to contracts worth $ 4bn, while the upgrading of
port facilities is also a probable area in which foreign companies will play a
big role.

European oil companies have accelerated investments in Libya since the US
government abandoned plans in May 1998 to fine any foreign company investing
more than $ 40m annually in either Libya or Iran.

With European oil companies well established in the country, US companies are
now determined to resume their presence in Libya. This was halted in 1986 when
US unilateral sanctions, which are still in force, were imposed, forcing five
big US companies to abandon up to $ 2bn worth of fixed assets and forfeit
business worth up to $ 2.1bn a year. Libya has said their assets will be
returned when they resume operations in the country.

Growing European demand for Libyan oil, which currently stands at 1m barrels a
day, and gas, has intensified the US companies' determination to return.

"We still have assets there, operated by the Libyan government. And if we were
permitted by US law we would go back," said a spokesman for Conoco of the US.

Col Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, last year promised Italian companies
they would be given priority in the awarding of post-sanctions contracts.

Libya's attraction to the non-hydrocarbons sector will, however, be strongly
influenced by its ability to pay for the contracts which are under discussion.

Oil price fluctuations have allowed Libya to limit the impact of sanctions on
its economy for much of the past 20 years.

But it now faces 30 per cent unemployment, 25 per cent inflation and the burden
of a state sector that employs 700,000 people, or 20 per cent of the population.

"They do need capital because of the fall in the oil price, but we have to weigh
the possibility of investment against the attractions of the other markets in
the region," says Angus Blair, head of equities for the Middle East and North
Africa at ABN Amro.

Libya's economic growth has been influenced strongly by declining oil prices,
with oil revenues in 1999 expected to be down 24 per cent on 1998. Even so,
government figures show the hydrocarbons sector contributing 22.9 per cent of
GDP in 1997, a 40 per cent drop since 1980.

But oil accounts for 95 per cent of foreign earnings and 50 per cent of
government receipts. While the 1999 budget was based on a price of $ 18 a
barrel, receipts have been equivalent to $ 11.70.

Observance of the sanctions regime has meanwhile greatly diminished detailed
knowledge of what potential exists outside the main infrastructure and
hydrocarbons-related projects that are Libya's priority.

"Very few companies have been looking at Libya carefully," says a senior US
banker. "We will have to go back to looking at what there might be. But it has
significant potential for project finance. After Algeria, it's a big one."

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April 6, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Long road to trial in the Netherlands

SECTION: LOCKERBIE; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 320 words

1988

Dec 21 - Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York blown up over Lockerbie,
Scotland, killing 270 people. All 259 aboard the aircraft died, as well as 11 on
the ground.

1991

Nov 14 - US and Britain accuse Libyans Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al- Megrahi and
Lamen Khalifa Fhimah of involvement in the bombing. Libya denies any
involvement.

1992

Mar 31 - Security Council Resolution 748 tells Libya to surrender suspects by
April 15 or face worldwide ban on air travel and arms sales, and restriction on
diplomatic presence.

Apr 15 - UN air and arms embargo takes effect. The sanctions were to be reviewed
every 120 days.

1994

Jan 22 - Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi says a trial in The Hague for the two
suspects could resolve dispute.

1995

Mar 23 - FBI offers record $ 4m reward for information leading to the arrest of
the two Libyan suspects.

1997

Jun 11 - Libya says in a letter to the UN secretary-general that sanctions had
caused losses to Libya of $ 23.5bn.

1998

Feb 27 - International Court of Justice rules it has jurisdiction to hear the
Libyan complaint, in a move hailed by Libyans as a victory for them.

Aug 24 - Britain and US agree two suspects can be tried in The Hague under
Scottish law.

Aug 27 - UN Security Council unanimously endorses a US-British plan for a trial
in the Netherlands.

Dec 21 - Gadaffi calls for international trial

1999

Jan 2 - Tony Blair, British prime minister, says he will ask South African
President Nelson Mandela for Lockerbie help during a South African visit.

Feb 26 - Britain and US say Libya has 30 days to hand over suspects. Libya says
it cannot accept the deadline.

Mar 19 - Mandela, with Gadaffi at his side, announces in Tripoli that the two
suspects will be handed over by April 6. The agreement says they will be tried
in the Netherlands by a Scottish court.

Apr 6 - Suspects handed over, sanctions suspended.

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April 6, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Clues missed in rush to judgment:
Political imperatives meant Syria and Iran were blamed before
focus moved to Libya, reports Harvey Morris

SECTION: LOCKERBIE; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 518 words

Investigators of the Lockerbie bombing spent a year and a half pursuing the
trail of a Palestinian guerrilla connection before concluding, in mid-1990, that
the evidence pointed to Libya.

Among the clues overlooked during this time was a fax sent to Tripoli two months
after the bombing by the head of the Libyan interests section at the Saudi
Arabian embassy in London, Salaheddin Msallem.

It read as follows: "Our revenge has been taken for our martyrs of American
aggression by the slaughter of the American and British imperialists. The
American plane which crashed included some of the savage American forces
departing from Frankfurt to New York, via London. In my name, and that of my
fellows, we congratulate the heroes who did this act."

In the early months of the inquiry, all the circumstantial evidence appeared to
point to the bombers being linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jebril, a former Syrian army officer.

His name was first put forward as a suspect within 24 hours of the airliner
going down. In the process, Syria and Iran were fingered as likely patrons of
the attack. As late as September 1989, Americans close to the investigation said
Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiries pointed "unerringly" to an Iranian
connection to the bombing.

The Jebril connection was based on the outcome of a West German
Bundeskriminalamt operation, two months before Lockerbie, in which Mr Jebril's
West German cell was rounded up in possession of weapons and explosives
apparently being stockpiled for attacks on western airlines.

The West German agents were acting on a tip-off from Mossad, the Israeli
intelligence agency.

Astonishingly, all but two of 16 suspects were released and the unlikely claim
was that they went ahead with the Lockerbie plot even after their cover had been
broken.

The political imperative of establishing an Iranian-Syrian connection appears to
have clouded the inquiry and led to investigators overlooking clues to Libyan
involvement.

Various false trails - other theories had it that the renegade Palestinian Abu
Nidal was involved, or that it involved a failed CIA drugs sting - also obscured
the fact that Libya had a motive for the bombing. Tripoli was bombed in 1986 by
US aircraft flying out of the UK. Among the victims was Col Muammer Gadaffi's
adopted daughter.

As attention finally switched to Libya early in 1990, investigators discovered
in the wreckage a fragment of circuit board identical to one seized from two
Libyan secret agents arrested at Dakar airport, Senegal, 10 months before
Lockerbie. This tied in with new evidence that less than a month before the
bombing a Libyan had walked into a shop in Malta and bought a variety of
clothing, tattered remnants of which were later found in the Lockerbie wreckage.

Since details of the evidence pointing to Libya first emerged in a British
newspaper in December 1990, western investigators have not swerved from their
allegation that Libya, or at least Libyan nationals, were responsible for the
terrorist attack.

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April 6, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Gadaffi's big gamble:
Libya's leader haggled hard to minimise risks arising from any
trial of the Lockerbie suspects. Now he can contemplate
international rehabilitation, says Roula Khalaf:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 938 words

Muammer Gadaffi has always fancied himself as the revolutionary leader of an
Arab nation. The handing over yesterday of two suspected terrorists for trial in
the Netherlands marks the collapse of that ambition.

The Libyan president's decision to co-operate at last with with the United
Nations follows his general retreat from the sponsorship or backing of terrorist
groups. It also shows the effect of lower oil prices: wider economic
co-operation is now vital for Libya's development.

Even so, negotiating a deal to extradite those suspected of the Lockerbie
bombing was by no means easy. It took the US and Britain, through
intermediaries, many months to convince Col Gadaffi that the main object was not
to undermine his regime, but only to try the two Libyan agents accused of the
1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

The intense diplomacy led by South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United
Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan to re-assure the Libyan leaderwas key to
the handover of the two suspects. The surrender of the suspects - Abdel Basset
Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah - marks the beginning of the
resolution of one of the UN's most difficult cases.

As recently as last summer, the prospect of bringing the suspects to trial
seemed remote. The UN sanctions first imposed on Libya in 1992 to force it to
surrender the agents were beginning to crumble. The Arab League was calling for
the sanctions to be lifted and African countries had voted last June to ignore
the flight ban, and began landing their jets in Tripoli. Meanwhile, interest in
doing business with Libya was growing, particularly in Italy, France and Spain.

The key to resurrecting the Lockerbie case was the US and British decision - in
a UN resolution last August - to agree to Col Gaddafi's long-standing proposal
that the two suspects be tried in a neutral country rather than in Scotland. The
trial will now take place in the Netherlands under Scottish law and by Scottish
judges.

Diplomats credit Britain with taking the lead on the policy change and say the
UK also wanted to improve relations with the Arab world.

The concession put the

Libyan leader on the spot. Arab countries praised it and began asking Libya to
comply. Offers poured in from countries willing to mediate and to convince
Tripoli of the benefits of compliance. Col Gaddafi had plenty of incentive to
agree a deal he had, after all, proposed. With oil prices falling, the sanctions
on Libya, although far from the comprehensive embargo imposed on Iraq, were
biting. Money was running out.

The sanctions did not ban the sale of oil, more or less Libya's only source of
foreign exchange income. But by banning travel, arms sales, purchases of some
oil equipment and a freeze on certain assets, the sanctions deprived the oil
industry of much-needed development and complicated management of the economy by
raising the cost of most transactions.

Long-standing allegations that Col Gadaffi sponsored terrorism had also waned.
Promises of a boost in trade ties with Paris had led him to co-operate with
French judges over the bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger in 1989. Last
month, a trial in absentia found six Libyan officials, including Col Gadaffi's
brother-in-law, guilty of the bombing. France expects Libya to imprison the
officials and compensate their families.

But Lockerbie still made Col Gadaffi nervous. "He was afraid it was a trap,"
explains a UK official. "There was a great gap of mistrust and it took countries
with good relations with Libya to tell him he could trust the British [and the
Americans]."

The Libyan leader's fears, say diplomats, were that the trial would be turned
into an instrument through which more charges could be brought against Libya,
and specifically against him. Col Gadaffi was also worried that the US and
Britain would find reasons to reimpose sanctions, which would be suspended but
not lifted at the time of the handover.

Another UN crisis was giving Col Gadaffi little comfort. As he pondered
compliance, Col Gadaffi watched with alarm as Iraq was asked to fulfil UN
resolution requirements while also being told that the US would not agree to
lift UN sanctions imposed on it since the 1990-1991 Gulf war as long as
President Saddam Hussein remained in power.

However, although that played a part in the negotiations, it was made apparent
that the situation was different and that the requirements on Libya were both
very clear and very limited.

Through intermediaries, Col Gadaffi was given reassurances that the UN would be
ready to monitor the process of the trial and that it and other international
organisations could have unlimited right of access to the two suspects to ensure
that they were not being questioned by US and British intelligence.

Britain told Col Gadaffi that it did not envisage calling witnesses from Libya
and that anyone appearing would have immunity from arrest. The evidence, he was
told, was only against the two suspects.

The Libyan leader was also assured that a reimposition of UN sanctions, would
require a vote by the security council. He was told that members of the council
would never agree to such a move, even if the US and Britain wanted it.

Col Gadaffi will not be sure until the trial is over that damning evidence will
not come out to implicate him or his government. But having bargained hard to
minimise the risk of handing over the agents, he can now begin to contemplate
Libya's rehabilitation in the international community - and, more important, the
benefits of trade.

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

April 6, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Lockerbie trial

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 394 words

The trial of the two Libyans suspected of bombing the Pan Am flight that
exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 will serve two main purposes. The
first is the ordinary demand of justice. Whatever the outcome of the trial,
relatives of the 270 victims will at last be able to see the evidence that took
three years and £8m to collect.

Second, it will be an important step in the international campaign against
terrorism. The decision by Muammer Gadaffi, Libya's president, to surrender the
suspects for trial in the Netherlands is the result of seven years of United
Nations sanctions and intense diplomatic activity.

It may be that the controversial US bombing raids on Libya in 1986, in which Mr
Gadaffi's adopted daughter was killed, helped to persuade him to move away from
terrorism. But there is no doubt that a proper trial of suspects sends a very
much better message to the world.

The handover of the suspects will be welcomed in the Arab world. It will also
help to improve the tarnished image of the US and Britain, which are thought in
the region to have taken too hard a line against Iraq. Another welcome effect
will be to improve the credibility of the UN, which has been damaged by the
differences in the security council over policy towards Iraq.

The successful conclusion of an eight-year campaign to have the suspects
extradited was helped by the sensible decision of the UK and US governments to
allow the trial to take place (under Scottish law) in a third country. This
concession to one of Mr Gadaffi's demands allowed negotiations to be reopened
with the help of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's president, and of Saudi Arabia.

It will not be clear until the trial is over what kind of deal has been done
with Libya. It is generally assumed that the suspects - if guilty - would have
been acting under instructions from Tripoli. But evidence for this may prove
elusive. Last month a Paris court convicted six Libyan secret-service agents in
absentia for the September 1989 mid-air bombing of a French UTA flight with 170
people on board. Those agents will probably never go to prison. Nor was it
proved whether they were acting under orders.

But the Paris trial at least helped to show terrorism for what it is: unheroic,
loathsome and ineffective. Whatever the outcome of the Lockerbie trial, that
must be its message.

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Financial Times (London) (London,England)

April 6, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 3

Libyans fly in for Lockerbie bombing trial:
Murder suspects submit themselves to Scottish justice in
Netherlands

BYLINE: Malkani in Washington

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 510 words

DATELINE: Washington

The two Libyans suspected of planting the bomb that caused the Lockerbie air
disaster were taken to the Netherlands for trial yesterday, ending an eight-year
diplomatic stand-off.

As soon as they landed in the Netherlands, Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general,
sent a letter to the Security Council, prompting the suspension of the sanctions
imposed against Libya in 1992.

Hans Corell, the UN's chief legal counsel, escorted the two suspects on a 3 1/2
-hour flight to a Dutch military airfield at Valkenburg, near Leiden. He said
that the procedure was dignified and that the two were treated as ordinary
passengers.

The suspects are to be tried by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. The
Libyan government resisted demands that the trial take place in Britain or the
US.

Pan Am flight 103 crashed in the Scottish village in December 1988, with
Americans accounting for most of the 270 who died.

Yesterday's handover encountered a final delay when the government of Muammer
Gadaffi held an "unexpected ceremony" to mark the occasion, said Mr Corell.

The suspects, Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah,
alleged to have been Libyan intelligence agents, were each accompanied on the
flight by a brother and their lawyers.

A Dutch judge formally granted Britain's extradition request and the suspects
were flown by helicopter to the nearby Camp Zeist, where their trial for murder
will take place.

Mr Corell, speaking at Rotterdam airport, said: "What has been achieved by the
states concerned in this case is unprecedented.

"We have never discussed the question of guilt or innocence," he said, noting
that under international law the two men remain innocent. If convicted, they
would serve their sentences in Scotland.

Libya would be expected to compensate the relatives of victims of the Lockerbie
bombing if the two suspects were convicted, Robin Cook, the foreign secretary,
said in London. The Foreign Office said the potential compensation was hard to
assess but could be hundreds of millions of pounds.

Mr Cook praised Nelson Mandela, South African president, for persuading Tripoli
to hand over the suspects.

Tony Blair, who paid tribute to the victims' relatives, told President Bill
Clinton during a 20-minute phone conversation last night that the handover of
the Lockerbie suspects had been a good day for Anglo-American efforts to counter
terrorism.

In a statement, Mr Clinton said he was gratified that the two suspects would
face trial.

"At last the road to justice has begun. But most important, today is a day to
remember the men and women who lost their lives on Pan Am 103. I know their
loved ones have suffered greatly."

Relatives expressed concern that the suspects, if guilty, were probably just
carrying out orders, and that their masters should also face trial. They were
suspicious of the lifting sanctions against Libya before it was clear that that
Libya would fully co-operate with the trial. Special reports, Page 4 Gadaffi's
gamble, Page 18 Editorial Comment, Page 19

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April 5, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Stage set for trial of Lockerbie suspects

BYLINE: By Gordon Cramb in Amsterdam

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 434 words

DATELINE: Amsterdam

Two Scottish prosecutors arrived in the Netherlands yesterday, as indications
grew that Libya was preparing the immediate despatch of two nationals wanted for
planting the 1988 suitcase bomb which brought down a PanAm aircraft.

The crash of the Boeing 747 at Lockerbie in Scotland killed 259 on board and 11
on the ground. It brought the imposition five years later of United Nations
sanctions against Libya - including an air embargo and foreign assets freeze -
which are to be suspended if the extradition goes ahead.

The Libyan government of Muammer Gadaffi, which said last month it would deliver
the suspects by tomorrow, invited Arab and other delegations to the capital
Tripoli at the weekend to witness the handover.

The two are to be tried by a Scottish judicial bench sitting at Camp Zeist, a
former US military base east of the Dutch city of Utrecht. For a decade Libya
resisted western demands that the trial of Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi
and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, both allegedly intelligence agents, should take place
in the UK or US.

The 100 acres (40 hectares) of Camp Zeist allocated to the hearing will,
however, be Scottish soil for the duration of the procedure, which is thought
likely to take well over a year.

As the two will be charged with murder, Scottish law requires that a trial begin
within 110 days. But either defence or prosecution can apply to have that time
limit extended, "and that is a very big but", said a Scottish Office official.

About 100 Scottish police as well as 20 prison officers, court officials and
other staff are already billeted at the base.

The three judges, who will sit without a jury, have yet to be selected.

The suspects are due to be taken under UN escort to the Netherlands, where they
will be detained by Dutch police before a formal extradition to Scottish
jurisdiction. Under arrest at Camp Zeist, the two will be held in a makeshift
Scottish police station while bomb-proof cells are completed.

British officials described the site as "extremely secure". Another building is
being converted into a courtroom, in an operation which has cost the UK £750,000
so far. That bill is expected to rise significantly as the procedure drags on,
although Washington has indicated it will contribute.

As Norman McFadyen and Jim Brisbane, the two public prosecutors, arrived at
Amsterdam's Schiphol airport yesterday, Ahmed bin Hilli, assistant secretary
general of the Arab League, was on his way to Tripoli. Hans Corell, chief UN
legal counsel, was expected to arrive in the Libyan capital to arrange the
handover.

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April 1, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

A slow and tortuous dance followed by a final stumble over
strategy and culture:
A proposed merger of Enterprise Oil and Lasmo fell through after
three months; Robert Corzine and Thorold Barker investigate:

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK; Pg. 32

LENGTH: 891 words

Investors can be excused for wondering why it took

Enterprise Oil and Lasmo - Britain's two biggest independent explorers - more
than three months to decide that a proposed merger to create a UK
"super-independent" was not in their interests.

The deal did not stumble so much over price or the allocation of jobs on the new
board, but on basic strategy and the lack of a common vision of the future.

As Joe Darby, Lasmo chief executive, said: "I am not convinced a bigger company
would be that much stronger."

Both insist that their "slow and tortuous dance", as one banker described it,
was a genuine attempt at integration.

"We felt an obligation to see if it could work," said one senior Lasmo executive
this week. "But the more we looked at it, the more issues of culture and
complete strategic alignment began to be strained."

The emphasis on corporate culture and strategy was not surprising given the
limited scope for cost cutting in a merged group. There were estimates of as
much as £100m in annual savings, but such figures were predicated on
successfully liquidating assets in an uncertain market, and on reducing
exploration spending. Genuine cost savings, according to Lasmo, amounted to only
about £20m.

But are the cultures and strategies of the two really so different as to form an
insurmountable barrier? Certainly their perceptions of their strengths and
weaknesses differ markedly.

Lasmo sees itself as the bolder and more commercially savvy of the two, while
Enterprise prides itself on its technical prowess.

Although both started life in the North Sea, their growth strategies have
diverged in recent years.

Enterprise remains focused on the UK North Sea and other oil producing areas in
the western world, such as the US Gulf of Mexico, offshore Norway and Italy.
Such areas are not only seen as politically secure, but there is the added
advantage of liquid, secondary markets that enable widespread asset trading. The
disadvantage is that they are generally high cost areas that can be technically
challenging. There is also limited scope for large-scale growth.

Lasmo, on the other hand, has focused on politically riskier countries such as
Algeria, Libya, Venezuela and Iran, where there are opportunities to find or
acquire large reserves of low cost oil.

But there are rarely secondary markets for such assets and companies the size of
Lasmo often have limited political clout with host governments. It also requires
the careful nurturing of personal relationships and means operating in less than
transparent legal and commercial environments - and can mean competing
head-to-head with much larger oil companies.

Many analysts believe the motivation behind the merger initiative was
Enterprise's desire to move more in the direction of Lasmo. A deal would have
been a quick and relatively cheap way of adding a higher risk, but higher growth
element, to its portfolio.

Pierre Jungels, Enterprise's chief executive, insists there was more to the
deal. "The idea was to try to redefine the exploration and production business."
He and his advisers viewed a larger company as a better base from which to build
a new type of exploration company less susceptible to violent swings in oil
prices, and which could deliver more consistent returns over the full commodity
cycle.

One member of Enterprise's team said: "In the end it was very difficult to
communicate the creative possibilities to Lasmo. They were more of a mind to
survive as an independent company."

Mr Darby, however, insists Lasmo directors "spent a long time talking about the
merits of a deal. But the benefits weren't compelling."

Some analysts believe Lasmo, whose share price was under siege this year amid
rumours of a possible rights issue, only saw a merger as a last-ditch option in
case record low oil prices persisted throughout the year. Mr Darby, however,
denies that the timing of the decision to end the talks was connected to the
recent rise in oil prices and the partial return of confidence to the oil
industry.

But what are the prospects for the two companies on their own? Both claim to
have learned their lessons from the oil price slump and the drubbing their share
prices received as a result: "I hope we won't go back to the bad old ways," said
one Lasmo executive director.

Mr Jungels appears equally contrite. "We have to avoid the stop and go style of
the past," he says. That means resisting buying assets at the top of the market
because that is the only time when shareholders are willing to give oil
explorers more cash.

Both companies say they can move forward on their own: "We don't need to look at
other potential targets," says Mr Jungels, who points to Enterprise's presence
in Brazil, Morocco and the Middle East as evidence that it too has a low-cost
oil strategy.

Lasmo said it will "talk to anybody at any time", but will continue to implement
its independent strategy to develop low-cost reserves, although possibly with
more partners.

The biggest uncertainty facing both is whether they will be allowed to stay
independent. Oil industry consolidation has so far been mainly confined to the
integrated sector, but some analysts believe it is only a matter of time before
the bigger companies begin to pick off larger independents such as Enterprise
and Lasmo.

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March 20, 1999, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Lockerbie bomb suspects will face trial, says Libya
GADAFFI IN PLEDGE TO MANDELA ON HAND-OVER:

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 497 words

DATELINE: Cairo

Libya has agreed to hand over for trial two men accused of the Lockerbie
airliner bombing by April 6, Nelson Mandela, the South African president,
announced yesterday after talks in Tripoli with Colonel Muammer Gadaffi, the
Libyan leader.

Col Gadaffi told a meeting of Libya's General People's Congress that Mr Mandela
and Prince Bandar ibn Sultan ibn Abdul Aziz, Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US
- who have been leading negotiations between Libya, the US, Britain and the
United Nations - had secured all the guarantees Libya had been demanding in
return for delivering the two men for trial.

An agreement would pave the way for an end to United Nations sanctions on Libya.

The two suspects, Abdel Basset Ali el-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, are
due to be handed over to the United Nations for trial under Scottish law in the
Netherlands.

They are accused of planting the bomb on a PanAm Boeing 747 that exploded on
December 21 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 259 passengers and crew and
11 people on the ground.

The US and Britain each reacted cautiously to the announcement, saying they
would be satisfied only once the two men were in the hands of the UN.

Robin Cook, UK foreign secretary, said: "We will not drop our guard until the
two men land in the Netherlands. I'm not going to breathe a sigh of relief until
that happens."

Britain is awaiting written confirmation to Koffi Annan, UN secretary-general,
that the Libyan decision is genuine. Once the two men are in UN custody, the UN
Security Council will vote to suspend the sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992 and
tightened in 1993.

If after 90 days the Security Council is satisfied that Libya has fully complied
with UN resolutions demanding that the two men be sent for trial, the sanctions
will be lifted.

In his hour-long speech yesterday, Col Gadaffi said: "It was enough for me that
[President] Mandela, [Saudi] King Fahd and [Saudi Crown] Prince Abdallah have
given me all the guarantees and asked me to leave them free to act."

It was left to Mr Mandela to announce the date by which the suspects are due to
have been transported to the Netherlands on a UN aircraft on standby in Italy.

The two will be tried by three Scottish judges under Scottish law at a converted
US air base in the Netherlands.

If found guilty, they will serve prison sentences in the top security wing of
Glasgow's Barlinnie prison in Scotland, under UN supervision.

The charges followed the discovery in 1990 of traces of the explosive Semtex and
fragments of an electronic detonator in the wreckage of the aircraft.

Investigators identified clothing fibres used to surround the Semtex and traced
them to Malta. There, the investigators believe, one of the accused checked in
the suitcase full of explosives that was eventually to be placed aboard the
PanAm flight at Frankfurt.

A spokesman for the families of the 270 people who died in the bombing welcomed
the Libyan decision.

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March 20, 1999, Saturday W EDITION 1

Colonel's circus and his tricks:
METROPOLIS:
Mark Huband is subjected to a diatribe from Libyan leader Muammer
Gadaffi. It fails to move the masses

SECTION: BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 1253 words

It was just beneath the Giza pyramids that I caught my first glimpse. Two
hundred cars had crossed the border with Colonel Muammer Gadaffi, including an
army truck with his home -a tent - rolled up in the back. From the moment the
cavalcade snaked by, Egypt embarked on a week-long campaign to keep its Libyan
neighbour occupied, for fear that idleness might breed grumbling and
disaffection.

Nobody is really sure why Gadaffi takes such long holidays in Egypt. This was
billed as an official visit, and indeed President Hosni Mubarak tried to
convince him that now was the time to hand over the two men accused of
masterminding the bombing of the airliner that crashed on to the Scottish town
of Lockerbie. But once these ultimately fruitless chats were over, what else was
there to discuss?

It mattered little to the colonel: he likes to talk, and talk, and talk. He has
a sonorous voice, and obviously likes listening to it.

Despite the accusations of intolerance directed against his regime, he is a
proponent of the freest kind of speech - as long as the speech is his, and is
delivered uninterrupted.

First, it was the turn of Egypt's academic and intellectual elite, who were told
once again that Libya had turned away from the Arab world, and was now
concentrating on sub-Saharan Africa. Thank you very much, they thought. Phew.

"[Pan-Arabism] is a phoenix - a myth that does not exist," he told students at
Cairo University. "My project of an Arab Federation attempts to breathe life
into the lifeless body of Arab unity."

Arab unity would not be a problem if it were not for leaders such as Gadaffi,
who have little truck with people they don't agree with; his disaffected former
foreign minister Mansour Kikhia was executed in Libya after being abducted from
Cairo in 1993. His voice may be sonorous, but his harsh words were "an attempt
to save pan-Arabism from a black fate . . . a disaster," he claimed, his
abandonment of Arabism clearly more threat than fact.

Attempts to revamp such dead ideas which regional leaders, particularly the
Egyptian intellectual elite, dumped years ago, suggests that isolation must by
now have reached beneath the colonel's skin.

Perhaps he had failed to notice that in Cairo the children of Arab unity now
have children of their own. In the glass and steel office blocks of Cairo, it is
this new generation which is privatising, liberalising and Thatcherising the
very institutions their parents nationalised in the name of socialist-oriented
Arab unity 30 years ago.

It must have been difficult to appreciate this from inside the colonel's tent,
which he pitched in the garden of Cairo's glorious Qubba palace.

Like an ageing circus master trying to revive an old trick, which his hosts were
too polite to say he is unlikely to perform with any grace, the colonel hobbled
from the tent on the crutch he has used since he broke a leg many months ago. He
stepped into the gleaming white limousine which had brought him from Libya, and
decided to try to revive some of his old magic.

Next it was the turn of Egypt's farmers and labourers, upon whom the
ever-philosophical Egyptian government had allowed their guest to be unleashed.
In a huge, floral-painted big top he sat before the people of the Egyptian towns
el-Fayoum, Minya and Beni Suef, and tried to bring back the spirit of the good
old days.

"Arab unity is a reality between the peoples of Egypt and Libya [and] only
imaginary borders and colonial attempts to divide Arab ranks keep us apart.
[These attempts] will not succeed in destroying historical ties and a united
future," the leader told the farmers. He chose to meet them because it is said
their ancestors had come from Libya.

Forty young men had been planted at the front of the crowd gathered in the big
top which was erected beside Lake Karoun near el-Fayoum, south-west of Cairo.
They led the cheering as the colonel and his troupe swept in. Two cheerleaders
were dis patched to the front of the crowd, demanding that these 40 yelled and
screamed their praise at the tops of their voices.

Behind them sat the 2,000 farmers. They listened in silence as they heard the
self-styled Leader of the Fateh Revolution raise the prospect of unifying their
two countries. An Egyptian soldier sat beside me with a serious expression.
After 20 minutes of threats of unity in the rising heat, he turned and whispered
in my ear. "This man might have ideas about making us all one. But have you seen
the people with him? What do I have in common with them?"

Indeed, if one judges a person by his friends, then why not judge the Leader of
the Revolution by his entourage. Most prominent were two glamorous African
women, the famed bodyguards of the Gadaffi posse. Squeezed into military
fatigues, they tottered on stiletto heels, running their fingers through long
wet-look ringlets, the very image of an elite protection force.

But if the cordon securitaire offered by these two women somehow managed to be
pierced, then a meat wall of goons straight out of central casting was present
as a second tier. They bore much similarity to those who guard Israeli prime
ministers, US presidents, and all the other leaders of the world who have
something to worry about.

After 45 minutes of deafening screeches of approval from the pockets of vocal
supporters, and near-total silence from the 2,000 farmers who sat behind them,
Gadaffi's threat of unity with Egypt had clearly fallen on deaf ears. After 30
minutes the farmers had started to leave, more concerned to work their fields
than join the troupe on the march to a federation in which they, too, would have
the bizarre honour of global pariah status.

The Leader of the Fateh Revolution eventually got the message and limped off the
stage.

The two women in their fatigues tottered behind him with expressions of
apocalyptic seriousness on their faces, as if harm to their leader implied the
end of the world. Then came a diminutive bald man wearing a lopsided toupee dyed
too black to be serious. He was followed by a Gadaffi lookalike, who must have
been a family member, perhaps even a stand-in when need arose. Lastly were the
young bloods who had cheered so heroically. For them, it was back on to the bus
which had brought them, and off for a course of throat rejuvenation before the
next appointment with demagoguery.

Meanwhile, I tried for an interview. I even approached the two glitzy women, who
muttered in what sounded like Swahili, before they slid away into hiding behind
the limousine. Then a man who had pushed his way past two larger-than-life
members of the Egyptian presidential guard, took me by the arm and led me away.
He asked who I was, what I wanted, where I was from.

His grip tightened as I admitted to being a national of the Great Satan's
colonial islet. Images of Mansour Kikhia's fate swept through my mind, as I was
told to go away. This, he said, was not an affair for people like me.

I said I had found the colonel's speech interesting. He just snarled. Perhaps he
was one of those who, that very day, had been sentenced in absentia by a French
court to life imprisonment for bombing a French passenger airliner over Niger in
1989.

He went to join the colonel, who was eating lunch beside the lake, while the
meat wall of body guards was slung up to guard him. The show was over. The
farmers had gone home a little disappointed. But tomorrow, who knows, there's
bound to be one more trick to bring back the crowds.

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March 11, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 2

Abbot casts eye over rivals' assets

BYLINE: By Thorold Barker

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK AND IRELAND; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 336 words

Abbot, the oil services group, is looking at acquisition opportunities thrown up
by the low oil price after the collapse last month of its merger discussions
with ProSafe, a Norwegian rival.

Alasdair Locke, chairman, said rivals exposed to exploration, where the low oil
price has forced big budget cuts, might be willing to sell assets. Abbot has
been protected from the effect of budget cuts by explorers because its platform
drilling services are concentrated on development wells.

He declined to say how much the group, which has net debt of £16.8m, might be
able to spend.

Tony Alves, at Henderson Crosthwaite, said it could easily afford £25m.

Mr Locke's comments accompanied a rise in 1998 pre-tax profits to £16.9m
(£15.2m) from turnover of £191m (£155m).

Operating profits in the core North Sea drilling business rose 13 per cent to
£14.8m.

Mr Locke said there were significant opportunities for new contracts there as a
result of consolidation among the oil companies, "which we are pretty confident
will be translated into business".

He also said Abbot was well positioned to win business in countries like Libya
and Iran where western companies are looking to secure low cost production.

The group signed a windfarm joint venture with PowerGen in December, which will
produce turnover of £5m next year from eight windfarms. The joint venture is
looking at spending £150m on capital projects in the next five years,
particularly on offshore projects.

Mr Locke said the new opportunities in its oil services businesses would begin
to be reflected in the group's results by the end of the year, but "it would be
imprudent at this early stage of the year to anticipate a material overall
improvement in the 1999 result".

Mr Alves is forecasting pre-tax profits of £18m and earnings per share of 9.1p
for 1999.

A final dividend of 2p (1.8p), making a total of 3p (2.6p) will be paid from
earnings per share of 8.4p (7.8p).

The shares fell 7 1/2 p to close at 145p.

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March 3, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Time to back Iran's reformers

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 450 words

Mohammad Khatami, Iran's reformist president, has demonstrated once again that
he has overwhelming popular support in trying to bring the 20-year-old Islamic
revolution under democratic accountability and the rule of law. The west must
now do its utmost to bolster his position.

The results emerging from last Friday's first nationwide elections for municipal
government show that the reform coalition is intact and on the march. With the
outcome still incomplete, it looks as though Khatami has won over 70 per cent of
the seats, in the same way that he won over 70 per cent of the presidential vote
21 months ago - on a turnout of 90 per cent.

Iran's orthodox theocrats were - and remain - stunned by the sheer scale of that
victory. Now it has happened to them again, and the armies of youngsters and
women who elected Khatami have this time been electing themselves; some
significant councils will be either majority or totally controlled by women.

For all that the hardliners retain control of key levers of power - foreign and
defence policy, the intelligence services and judiciary - they have been
massively rejected by the Iranian people. The reformists, moreover, have refused
to succumb to a campaign of intimidation, obstruction and - in recent months -
assassinations.

The bloody turn of recent events appears to have followed the Khatami
government's attempts to start auditing the theocrats' material interests, which
control about 85 per cent of Iran's economy. It is in this sphere that the west
can no longer stand aside if it wants reform to triumph in Iran.

Iran needs to create nearly 1m jobs a year for its very young population and,
with oil prices now at a 13-year low, it desperately needs investment. The
present, mafia-like structure of the economy is a big impediment. But so too are
US attempts to isolate Iran by sanctions.

Admittedly, the US administration has acknowledged that the Iran Libya Sanctions
Act (Ilsa), which purports to punish foreign companies investing in Iran, is
unenforceable. Elf Acquitaine of France and Eni of Italy - which President
Khatami will be visiting next week - have just underlined this with a new $ 1bn
investment in an offshore oilfield.

But at a time when Tehran is opening to the world - even considering equity
stakes in its oil industry - the US is deterring investment and withholding
recognition of the international stature Khatami needs to succeed at home.

The Clinton administration is strapped by visceral congressional opposition to
Iran. But, along with its European allies, it should now be searching for the
sort of gestures and actions that can underpin President Khatami rather than
undermine him.

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March 3, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Albert Reynolds to chair Bula
NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK AND IRELAND; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 145 words

OIL EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION

Albert Reynolds to chair Bula

Bula Resources, the Irish oil exploration and production company, yesterday
sought to strengthen its contacts in Iraq and Libya, by appointing Albert
Reynolds, the former Irish prime minister, as non-executive chairman.

Tony Peart, who was yesterday appointed managing director, said Mr Reynolds had
experience of dealing with the Middle East and north Africa and had taken a
particular interest in Iraq and Libya, where Bula has interests. The company
also said it had raised I£1.75m (£1.53m) from placing 175m shares at 1p.

Mr Reynolds and his family trusts will be granted options on 87.5m shares
exercisable at the placing price - 5 per cent of the capital - subject to
approval at an extraordinary meeting. Bula's shares closed unchanged at 1p in
both Dublin and London. Thorold Barker

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March 2, 1999, Tuesday EUROPE EDITION 1

Iran signs $1bn oil deal with Elf and Eni

BYLINE: in Paris

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 379 words

DATELINE: Paris

The opening of Iran's oil sector to foreign investment took another step forward
yesterday when Tehran signed a deal worth nearly $ 1bn with Elf Aquitaine of
France and Eni of Italy to refurbish the Doroud offshore field, near Kharg
Island in the Gulf.

However, the agreement is a blow to US attempts to restrict large-scale foreign
investment in Iran's strategic petroleum industry. It also provides a financial
boost to the government of President Mohammad Khatami, which is facing a budget
deficit this fiscal year of $ 5bn because of the collapse in world oil prices.

Elf and Eni will spend $ 540m to raise Doroud's output by 90,000 barrels a day,
to a plateau production rate of 220,000 b/d by 2003, by drilling wells and
installing water and gas injection to improve reservoir recovery. It will boost
Doroud's recoverable reserves from 600m barrels to 1.5bn barrels.

Under the "buy-back" contract, the capital provided by the two companies will be
repaid through the sale of a portion of the increased crude output, plus a rate
of return thought to be in excess of 15 per cent. The value of the 10-year deal
is estimated at $ 998m, including charges and remuneration to Elf and Eni.

Iranian officials are assessing dozens of proposals from foreign oil companies
keen to take part in more than 40 projects.

The Middle East Economic Survey newsletter yesterday said that more than 30
foreign companies from 18 countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US
had submitted proposals, although the US ones - said to have come mainly from
Arco of Los Angeles - depend on sanctions being lifted by Washington.

Although Elf has "exchanged views" with US officials about its involvement in
Iran, the company said Washington had no right to restrict the commercial
activities of a European company. European governments and the European Union
have advised European oil companies operating in Iran to ignore Washington's
Iran/Libya Sanctions Act. Ilsa is intended to deter foreign energy investments
in those countries by threatening to punish their US operations.

BP Amoco and Royal Dutch/ Shell, Europe's biggest oil groups with interests in
the US, have so far been reluctant to make a definitive move in Iran. $ 5bn
target for investment, Page 7

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March 2, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

US suffers Iranian oil deal blow

BYLINE: By Robert Corzine in London and David Owen in Paris

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 584 words

DATELINE: Paris

The re-opening of Iran's oil sector to foreign investment took another big step
forward yesterday when Tehran signed a deal with Elf Aquitaine of France and Eni
of Italy to refurbish the Doroud offshore field near Kharg Island in the Gulf.

The agreement is also another blow to unilateral US attempts to restrict
large-scale foreign investment in Iran's strategic petroleum industry.

Elf and Eni will spend $ 540m (£337m) in capital expenditure over the next few
years to boost Doroud's output by 90,000 b/d, to a production rate of 220,000
b/d by 2003. It will do so by drilling new wells and installing water and gas
injection to improve reservoir recovery. The refurbishment will also boost
Doroud's recoverable reserves from 600m barrels to 1.5bn barrels.

Under the "buyback" arrangement, the capital provided by the two companies will
be repaid through the sale of a portion of the increased crude output, plus a
rate of return thought to be in excess of 15 per cent. The total value of the
10-year deal is estimated at $ 998m (£624m), including financial charges and
remuneration to Elf and Eni.

Negotiations over the redevelopment of Doroud have been going on since 1995. In
recent months the talks faltered over Iran's insistence on production rate
guarantees. Elf and Eni have now guaranteed "a certain production capacity" when
the redevelopment work is completed, with a review of the guaranteed rate one
year later.

The Doroud agreement comes as Iranian government officials are in the midst of
assessing dozens of proposals from foreign oil companies keen to take part in
more than 40 oil and gas projects. The Middle East Economic Survey, a
newsletter, said yesterday that more than 30 foreign companies from 18 countries
in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US, had submitted proposals, although the
US ones - said to have come mainly from Arco of Los Angeles - depend on
unilateral sanctions being lifted by Washington.

Although Elf has "exchanged views" with US government officials about its
involvement in Iran, the company said Washington had no right to restrict the
commercial activities of a European company.

Individual European governments and the European Union have advised European oil
companies operating in Iran to ignore Washington's Iran/Libya Sanctions Act.
Ilsa is intended to deter foreign energy investments in those countries by
threatening to punish their US operations.

The threat of US retaliation receded after the US issued a waiver to Total, the
French oil company which is developing the Sirri and South Pars fields, in a
move which many European companies interpreted as giving them a green light to
invest in Iran's energy sector.

But BP Amoco and Royal Dutch/Shell, Europe's biggest oil groups with extensive
interests in the US, have so far been reluctant to make a definitive move in
Iran, even though they are talking to officials there about a number of
projects.

According to Elf's 1997 annual report, the French group had just under FFr23bn
(£2.41bn) of identifiable assets in North America at December 31, 1997,
equivalent to nearly 10 per cent of the total.

Also in 1997, the US accounted for about 5 per cent of the company's natural gas
production. US exploration and production activities are conducted offshore in
the Gulf of Mexico, where the group has decided to increase its presence,
particularly in the deep offshore sector. North America accounted for 19 per
cent of the group's FFr58bn in chemicals sales.

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February 27, 1999, Saturday LONDON EDITION 2

Libya given extra 30 days
NEWS DIGEST

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 138 words

LOCKERBIE SUSPECTS

Libya given extra 30 days

Britain and the US last night gave Libya another 30 days during which to deliver
the alleged Lockerbie bombers for trial, after Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general,
asked Tripoli to set a firm date for their surrender.

During a routine Security Council review of sanctions against Libya, Mr Annan
and the majority of delegates agreed that the extra time allowed by London and
Washington was reasonable, officials said. However, the Council did not set a
formal deadline.

Further discussions are expected next week on a US proposal for a statement by
the Council intended to push the process forward. The US has threatened to seek
tougher sanctions if the men accused of downing Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 are
not soon brought to trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law.

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February 23, 1999, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Egyptian ministry penalised
NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 100 words

COMPENSATION FOR ABDUCTION

Egyptian ministry penalised

Egypt's interior ministry was yesterday ordered by a court to pay E£100,000
(£18,000) in compensation to the wife of a leading opponent of the Libyan
government who was abducted while in Cairo and later killed.

The Cairo appeals court awarded the damages to Baha el-Emary, wife of the former
Libyan foreign minister Mansour Kikhia. Mr Kikhia, who disappeared in 1993,
became an outspoken critic of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gadaffi. His death
followed a threat by the Libyan regime to eliminate its opponents. Mark Huband,
Cairo

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February 19, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

US threats over Iran oil field dismissed

BYLINE: By Robert Corzine

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 300 words

Threats by the US government to punish an Anglo-Canadian consortium that wants
to develop an Iranian offshore oil field have been dismissed by the two
companies involved.

Premier Oil, the UK explorer, and its partner Bow Valley of Canada, were given
the go-ahead earlier this week by the Tehran government to negotiate the final
details of a contract to develop the Balal offshore field in the Gulf.

Yesterday, Charles Jamieson, managing director of Premier, said the statement by
the US State Department that it would seek to apply the unilateral Iran-Libya
Sanctions Act (Ilsa) against the two companies was "a diplomatic response" to
approval of the project by the Supreme Economic Council in Tehran.

Ilsa allows the US government to punish foreign companies that invest more than
$ 20m a year in Iran's petroleum industry, which has only recently been opened
to international investment.

Mr Jamieson said the European Union and British government's position on Ilsa
was "straightforward". Neither recognises the right of the US to apply
unilateral sanctions on non-US companies.

The threat of US retaliatory actions under Ilsa have receded since Washington
issued a waiver last year for the $ 2bn South Pars gas project being undertaken
by Total of France, Petronas of Malaysia and Gazprom of Russia.

But big oil companies with extensive interests in the US are still wary of
flouting it.

Sir John Browne, chief executive of BP Amoco, said on Wednesday that his company
was in regular contact with the State Department about possible investments in
Iran. But BP Amoco has so far not asked the US government whether it would
object to such investments.

Iran has offered more than 40 upstream oil and gas projects to foreign companies
as a way to revitalise its oil industry.

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February 18, 1999, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Tokyo residents ponder LDP's rival aspirants for governor:
Two of Japan's most active figures internationally are fighting
each other, reports Michiyo Nakamoto:

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC; Pg. 06

LENGTH: 658 words

Expertise in international diplomacy is not a skill that wins many votes in
Japanese domestic politics. But a messy political battle over who should run for
governor of Tokyo from the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) has pitted two
of Japan's most active figures on the international stage against one another.

Until recently, Yasuo Akashi, 68, was undersecretary general for humanitarian
affairs at the United Nations, involved in UN peacekeeping activities in
Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia.

Koji Kakizawa, 65, is a former foreign minister of Japan who has led a long
personal campaign to promote relations with foreign countries ranging from
France to Libya.

In a curious twist of fate, the race to become the LDP's candidate in April's
Tokyo gubernatorial race has brought the two close friends face to face in a
showdown that has wreaked havoc in the ruling party.

It is ahuge embarrassment for the LDP, which had settled on fielding Mr Akashi,
after an earlier bungle involving an opposition candidate. Initially, the LDP
had wanted to back Kunio Hatoyama, deputy secretary general of the opposition
Democratic party (DPJ), who is running as an independent.

Mr Hatoyama used to be a member of the LDP and comes from a prominent political
family with impeccable conservative credentials. But firm opposition against LDP
support from the DPJ scuppered that plan, leaving the ruling party looking
confused, disorganised and desperate to find a suitable candidate.

Although the LDP does not face national elections until the autumn of next year,
the stakes are high for the ruling party. The Tokyo gubernatorial election is a
key indicator of trends among urban voters, points out John Neuffer, political
analyst at Mitsui Marine Research Institute. "Symbolically, it is of crucial
importance to the LDP," he says.

Young LDP parliamentarians, many of whom are from urban constituencies, are
seriously worried about the ruling party's declining support in urban areas.

However, as long as Mr Kakizawa insists on running there is little the LDP can
do except to threaten to expel him from the party. Mr Kakizawa is unacceptable
as a candidate to the LDP because of opposition from the Komei party, whose
co-operation the LDP needs to make up for its lack of a majority in the upper
house of the Diet.

The Komei, backed by the Soka Gakkai religious organisation, has not forgotten
that Mr Kakizawa led a campaign to enforce transparency in accounts of the
tax-exempt religious organisations.

In the furore that has developed over the issue, the plight of Tokyo residents
has been left on the sidelines.

With outstanding debts of Y6,651bn (£35bn) and a budget deficit of Y100bn
(£531m) this year, Tokyo faces serious financial problems.

Projects undertaken in the years of plenty, such as the redevelopment of the
waterfront area, are still costing the city dearly, while revenues have fallen
sharply. The Tokyo metropolitan government's towering headquarters alone, built
eight years ago at a cost of Y160bn, costs the city Y5.4bn a year in
maintenance.

Whoever becomes governor will also face mounting problems related to the
recession.

Yet Mr Kakizawa, whose candidacy the LDP adamantly refuses to allow, is the only
one who can claim to have taken any concrete action in this regard.

As head of an LDP urban revitalisation committee, Mr Kakizawa, known
affectionately by his supporters as the "Kennedy" of downtown Tokyo, has been
actively studying measures for the city's redevelopment.

Tokyo's liberal voters may be disillusioned with non-establishment types, given
the failure of the incumbent governor, Yukio Aoshima, to live up to
expectations.

But Tokyoites are notoriously unpredictable - and well educated and well
informed.

Amid continuing economic slump, the LDP may again find to its dismay that it is
still policy, rather than political support, that sways the city's electorate.

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February 15, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

UN and Libya close to deal on Lockerbie trial:
Hand-over of suspects would see sanctions eased

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf and David Wighton in London

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 423 words

DATELINE: London

The United Nations and Libya yesterday appeared close to a deal on the hand-over
of two Libyan suspects charged with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland.

Western diplomats said a UN legal team was drawing up papers that would put in
writing an understanding reached by South African and Saudi mediators, who
recently held talks with Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi.

Under the deal, the two men would stand trial in the Netherlands under Scottish
law, but would serve any prison sentence in Scotland if found guilty.

In return, trade sanctions against Libya would be allowed to lapse.

Persuading Mr Gadaffi to hand over Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen
Khalifa Fhimah has been so fraught that the US and Britain have been careful not
to be overly optimistic.

But Robin Cook, foreign secretary, was upbeat yesterday, saying: "It has been
seven months of hard effort, but at last it looks as if we could be approaching
the end game."

A British proposal to allow a UN observer to monitor the prisoners while in
Scotland, ensuring they are not interrogated by British or US officials, appears
to have broken the deadlock.

Mr Cook said he had asked Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, to "nail down"
the assurances offered by President Gadaffi to Nelson Mandela, the South African
president, who has taken the lead in mediating an agreement.

"We need to get this buttoned in a clear, precise agreement," Mr Cook said.

A South African official announced at the weekend that sticking points over the
surrender of the two suspects had been resolved. Mr Gadaffi wrote to Mr Mandela
accepting the terms of the deal, but Mr Annan is expected to write to Mr Gadaffi
asking for clearer confirmation.

Diplomats said codifying the agreement could take a few days and all parties -
the UK, US and Libya - would have to sign the final wording.

Mr Gadaffi has been given assurances that UN sanctions, which would be suspended
once the two intelligence officers are surrendered, would not be reinstated
since this would require a new resolution by the UN security council.

The sanctions were imposed in 1992 and tightened a year later. They include a
ban on travel, arms sales and a freeze on some Libyan assets held abroad.

Last summer, as sanctions appeared to be eroding, the US and the UK agreed to Mr
Gadaffi's proposal that the trial should be held in a third country - the
Netherlands.

The Pan Am disaster killed 270 people, most of them Americans. Libya softens
stance, Page 4

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February 15, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Libya softens on Lockerbie despite cracks in sanctions

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 510 words

DATELINE: Cairo

The international pressure on Libya to surrender the two men accused of
masterminding the Lockerbie airliner bombing in 1988 has started to have an
effect only since an increasing number of African leaders began flouting the
United Nations ban on air links.

The Organisation of African Unity voted last June to ignore a flight ban imposed
as part of the sanctions regime, which the US first launched in 1986. Colonel
Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, has apparently softened his stance on the
Lockerbie suspects in response to a decrease rather than an increase in his
international isolation.

Economic sanctions on Libya were introduced with the passing of UN resolution
748 on March 31 1992. The sanctions followed the passing of UN resolution 731
two months earlier, which had demanded the extradition of the two men suspected
of involvement in the bombing of the PanAm aircraft, as well as demanding
Libya's co-operation with a French investigation into the bombing of an aircraft
of UTA, the French airline, in 1989.

The sanctions banned flights to Libya and imposed an arms embargo on the
country. A review of the sanctions in April 1993 led to threats by the US, UK
and France that tougher sanctions would be sought if Libya refused to comply.

On December 1 1993, UN Security Council resolution 883 came into effect in
response to Libyan non-compliance. The extended sanctions allowed for the
freezing of Libyan assets abroad, with the exception of oil and gas earnings,
and banned the sale of equipment for use in downstream oil and gas sector
operations.

All offices of Libyan Arab Airlines, the national carrier, were also to be
closed, the sale or leasing of aircraft to Libya prohibited, the maintenance of
its aircraft forbidden and the training of its personnel suspended.

Accompanying the UN sanctions imposed after the Lockerbie incident have been US
sanctions first imposed on January 7 1986 and renewed at six-monthly intervals
ever since. The US sanctions, imposed originally after the US accused Libya of
harbouring members of the Palestinian Fatah Revolutionary Council led by Abu
Nidal, led to the freezing of Libyan assets in the US and banned trade with or
travel to Libya by US citizens or companies.

The decline in US-Libya relations, which reached their nadir when US aircraft
bombed the Libyan capital on April 15 1986, saw a wedge being driven between the
US and European countries whose business interests would be affected by Libya's
ongoing isolation.

European companies, particularly those from Italy, continued to invest in
Libya's oil and gas sectors. In 1996 the US responded with the Iran-Libya
Sanctions Act (Ilsa), which was intended to deter non-US oil companies with
interests in the US from investing in either Iran or Libya, under threat of
heavy penalties on their American interests by the US government.

Ilsa was widely regarded as both unworkable and unfair, and has subsequently
been diluted as waivers have been applied to European and other companies
determined to defy the US ban.

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February 13, 1999, Saturday W EDITION 1

A place in the country:
Moslems in Britain, writes Christian Tyler, not only want to be
regarded as Moslem, but British, too:

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 1852 words

In a few days a proclamation is to be made on behalf of the nearly 2m Moslems
who live in Britain. Drawn up by 60 Islamic scholars, clerics, political and
social leaders, it seeks to lay to rest what Moslems say is a false stereotype,
a persistent caricature of their religion.

Its authors will assert, among other things, that a true interpretation of the
Koran and of the hadith (the life of the Prophet) gives absolutely no
justification for acts of terrorism, kidnap or violence against civilians.

There is no precedent for such a declaration in Britain. Some may challenge the
comparison, but it is as if Catholics under Elizabeth I of England had felt
compelled to deny being in league with the King of Spain, or the Jews of Europe
their responsibility for the Black Death.

Like those minorities before them, British Moslems feel besieged. Matters have
been brought to a head by the trial in Yemen on terrorist charges of five
British Moslems, by the warlike rhetoric of demagogues at home and abroad in the
wake of the British and US bombing of Iraq, and by the state of nervous alert in
western defence ministries.

"This has all come down to the local level," said a young detective constable,
himself a Moslem, in Manchester last week. "If there is a high crime rate in
some part of the city, people say: 'Is that what Islam teaches you?' And of
course it isn't."

At Manchester's central mosque, oldest of 20 in the city, a class of primary
school children - brown, white and black - was sitting on the floor of the
prayer hall being shown verses of the Koran in Arabic script. The children were
on a field trip for the religious studies part of the national curriculum. In
the office next door, wearing a grey cap of karakul lamb, sat Habib ur Rahman, a
former state school teacher and first imam of the mosque. "We are British, and
proud to be British," he said. "We are also proud to be Moslem. Faith is our
identity."

A first-generation immigrant, the imam spoke English fluently. "We have freedom
of speech and movement here, freedom of education. At the same time we realise
we are right on the bottom step of the ladder."

The imminent joint proclamation is unusual for another reason. Although the
mosque - there are about 1,000 in Britain today - is the focus of daily life for
Moslems, just as the parish church once was for Christians, there is no high
authority - no Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury - to command or speak for them.

The imam is not a priest but a prayer leader. Although some have undergone
theological training and can speak English, many have not and cannot. Attempts
to create a national body, such as the so-called Moslem Parliament, have
collapsed in disarray. Since 1997, the forum with the most national clout is the
Moslem Council of Britain.

To make matters more difficult, Moslems are a heterogeneous group. To speak of
the Moslem "community" is to give a false sense of its cohesion. Once identified
by their place of origin - mainly Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also India, the
Middle East, Turkey and parts of Africa - they are now seen, or choose to see
themselves, as Moslems. There are rich, educated professionals and businessmen,
but many more are poor, ill-educated and unemployed.

It is paradoxical that in a secular society, many of the second generation
British-born immigrants should choose to identify themselves by their religion.
Rumman Ahmed, a well-educated Bangladeshi working in London, explained that this
was one of the effects of the worldwide controversy over Salman Rushdie's book
The Satanic Verses. Hitherto-lax Moslems had, like himself, been moved to
identify again with Islam. Thus, while some Moslem women are struggling to
assert their independence - from arranged marriages, for example, and the
terrible struggles which sometimes ensue - others have taken up the veil, or
hijab, less as a sign of faith than as an act of cultural defiance in the face
of their white neighbours' hostility.

And this is the crux. Moslems want to be British, and Moslem, too.

For all these reasons, they feel vulnerable. If they express solidarity with the
umma, their brethren abroad, in Iraq, Libya, Iran, Sudan, Palestine, Kashmir,
Bosnia or Kosovo, they are assumed also to share a desire for revenge against
their perceived oppressors. If they feel victimised at home - refused jobs or
housing - they may fall prey to the rhetoric of militant refugees such as the
claw-handed preacher and former Soho bouncer Abu Hamza al-Mazri, who appears to
think the recent murder of tourists at Luxor was a good idea.

The importation into Europe, to meet a shortage, of foreign imams of dubious
provenance was identified as a burning issue at a recent Paris symposium of the
cultural body, the Franco-British Council. Although firebrands such as these
have little standing in the UK, according to Zaki Badawi, president of the
Muslim College in west London, they are a gift to press and broadcasters. They
go on television, spit poison and wave their arms about in displays of
histrionics which would be funny if they did not so tarnish the reputation of
the permanent residents.

A scholar of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, who issued his own counter-fatwa
against the late Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence on Rushdie, Sheikh Badawi
claimed false imams were jumping the immigration queue to get into Britain,
where they quickly went to ground. Many of those given priority clearance by the
British authorities were semi-literate, he said, with little or no knowledge of
Islamic theology and law.

He is concerned, too, about the influence of Saudi Arabia, which not only endows
some fine mosques but is equally generous in buying off critics abroad.
Missionaries from the Dar al Efta ("house of guidance") were seeking to impose
Saudi observances on British

Moslems, he said, even to the extent of telling them they had to live apart,
forbidding women to seek education, teenagers to play music, and children to
play chess and watch television.

In fact, he said, Moslems had no reason to fear that obedience to British law -
and many British customs - would make them "bad Moslems". That was clear from a
15th century fatwa, guidance given by the mufti of Morocco to those Moslems who
stayed in Spain after the Christian army conquered Granada. It stated that they
should obey the public laws and keep up their private observances. "What he said
then is what I would say now," the sheikh declared.

Other Moslem leaders point to the difficulty of recruiting imams from inside
Britain, not only because of the lack of training schools but also because of a
reluctance to take on a round-the-clock ministry when there is money to be made
and a good life to be had. (Which may be why some imams have taken up
job-share.)

Imam Hanif is one of those who received rapid clearance from the British High
Commission when he left Botswana 18 months ago to become religious leader of the
Masjid-al-Haadaya, a mosque converted from red- brick commercial premises, in a
poor area of Manchester. A small man, looking much younger than his years, he
was chosen by the council which runs the mosque not for zealotry, but for his
education, command of English and ability to relate to the young people of the
neighbourhood.

This mosque is seen as one of the most progressive in the Old Trafford area -
one reason why there is surprisingly little ethnic trouble in the district.
Members of the mosque council knelt in a red-carpeted upstairs room and
recounted how they had been able to help the police and local families by
bringing young miscreants back to the values enshrined in their faith.

Detective Constable Umer Khan, disguised by his ethnic dress but not his
Lancashire accent, explained the peculiar pressures that young British Moslems
are subject to, caught as they are between the strict culture of their parents
and the easy-going ways of their peers. When they reject the rules of their home
- no alcohol, no sex before marriage - they tend to reject everything. "This
kind of person will explode," he said. "Once he is outside his boundary, there
is no limit for him. He'll drink and smoke and do drugs. It can be just the same
for Hindus and Sikhs."

To say that British Moslems want to live as Britons does not mean they have no
demands. As well as financial support for the training of religious leaders,
Sheikh Badawi cited changes in family law to make divorce quicker and the
introduction of a parallel system of Islamic banking and mortgages (where fees
and contracts substitute for interest rates).

Moslems want their own denominational state schools, like the Anglicans and
Catholics - there are two so far, and 20 waiting for grant-maintained status.
(Meanwhile, Moslem parents try to get their children into Christian schools for
their religious ethos.) They want the census of 2001 to include a question on
religious affiliation, since no one knows how many Moslems there are.

Above all, they want legal protection - protection for Moslems, they say, not
for Islam - from discrimination on religious grounds or incitement to religious
hatred. Sikhs and Jews are protected because they are counted as racial groups;
Moslems are not. And although it is accepted that the blasphemy law is a dead
letter, there is a precedent in Northern Ireland for banning incitement.

The present government has shown itself more than usually accommodating. Moslems
are being encouraged to apply for promotion in the public services. They have
had a sympathetic hearing from Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, on the issue of
the census and religious discrimination. They have been reassured by Derek
Fatchett, junior minister at the Foreign Office, who in an end-of-Ramadan
message to The Muslim News declared: "We need to show the people of the west
that Islam is not about extremism or the terrorists who abuse its name. Far from
being something to be afraid of, it is a tradition of great beauty and wisdom."
Powerful stuff, even if designed to win votes.

Because they believe in God - and actually dare to show it - British Moslems are
something of a challenge to a secular society. But, if they are the most vocal,
they are by no means alone. Christians, too, can feel like a beleaguered
minority when advertisers and comedians feel free to ridicule their religious
symbols in a way they would never dare to mock Jewish or Moslem ones.

"In a secular state, religious people are seen as somehow superstitious, as
something from a past age," said Sheikh Badawi. Yet he, and others like him,
argue that the successful integration of Moslems into British society, far from
implying the triumph of one faith over another, one culture over another, could
help restore confidence in the moral values upon which that society was
originally built.

The idea that a secular Christian country should subsidise Moslem clerics sounds
shocking. But when citizens identify themselves primarily by their religious
belief, it is hard to see how the state can avoid replying in the same terms.

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January 30, 1999, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Canberra to resume Iran visits

BYLINE: By Gwen Robinson in Sydney

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 372 words

DATELINE: Sydney

Australia indicated yester-day it would resume high-level ministerial visits to
Iran with the aim of expanding bilateral trade, despite US attempts to
discourage trading partners from dealing with Iran.

Tim Fischer, Australia's deputy prime minister, said he would lead a trade
mission to Iran in March and hold bilateral ministerial meetings. It would be
the first official visit in five years by an Australian government minister to
Iran, and highlights Canberra's growing push to diversify export markets away
from the economically troubled Asian region.

The visit was also a recognition of changes being made by Iran's reformist
president, Mohammad Khatami, and a response to signs that other countries were
preparing to launch new trade initiatives with Iran, Mr Fischer said.

Reports that the US was planning to export wheat to Iran were recently denied by
US officials, but Australia believes Washington may be reassessing its policy on
trade with Iran.

The US, which accuses Tehran of supporting terrorism, discourages companies
dealing with Iran through the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.

The act imposes sanctions against foreign companies which invest more than $ 20m
(£12m) a year in Iran's oil and gas industry.

Mr Fischer predicted Iran would "soon be back in the market for Australian wheat
exports" and said the government's trade promotion body, Austrade, had been
"testing the waters" in Iran since last year.

However, there had been some concerns about the visit which were "carefully
weighed" after consultation with the Iranian government.

"All the ramifications had to be raised; at the moment the US Congress has a ban
by varying degrees on certain types of trade with Iran," Mr Fischer said.

Australian exports to Iran amounted to A$ 274m (£104m) in the year to June,
while two-way trade was A$ 299m. Wheat was one of Australia's largest exports.
In the current marketing year, Iran has purchased about 700,000 tonnes of
Australian wheat, most of which was shipped last month.

Mr Fischer's announcement followed news earlier this month of increased
Australian wheat sales to Iraq, another politically sensitive market which has
boycotted imports of US, UK, Swiss and Japanese goods.

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January 25, 1999, Monday USA EDITION 2

Global ghetto or regional bridge?:
PERSONAL VIEW DOMINIQUE MOISI:
The responsibility to secure peace in the Middle East rests
primarily with Israel's political leaders:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 891 words

The Middle East seems in suspense about the results of the Israeli elections in
May. Who would dare risk a prediction?

It is too early to dismiss Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister and leader of
Likud, despite very low opinion polls and his unpopularity within his own party.
He may have lost his most loyal friends and allies by failing to demonstrate any
sense of loyalty to ideas or people, but he has the survival instincts of a
veteran politician and still plenty of fighting spirit left.

Also playing in Mr Netanyahu's favour is the demographic evolution of Israel.
Sephardic Jews, ultra-orthodox communities and Russians appear to be more
numerous than ever, and are helping to reinforce the sociological basis of
conservatism.

It is a shift that belies the economic, cultural and physical appearance of
Israel.

Even during the sabbath, Jerusalem, the most religious city in Israel, gives the
impression of being an elegant and dramatic part of California. The Museum of
Cinema, controlled by the conservative municipality, opens on Friday night. Gay
bars have recently opened not far from the ultra-orthodox district of
Mea-Shearim.

Visiting the sophisticated Israel Museum in Jerusalem, or strolling around the
rooms dedicated to Modern Design, one feels very far from the Middle East
indeed.

By their body language, their level of spending (if not affluence), their tastes
(if not their daily behaviour), and their important contribution to high
technology industries, Israelis are more than ever part of the "global village".

Against this appearance of modernity, the most religious elements of society are
fighting a rearguard battle with the help of the electoral system which makes
them more powerful than their absolute numbers.

Whatever the depth and seriousness of its identity crisis, Israel is more
western than ever. Israelis may rediscover the complexities of their Jewish
identity but they do so in a context dominated by globalisation.

Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour party, has to his advantage the fact that most
Israelis still support the peace process. Mr Barak's credibility has increased
in the past few weeks. Both Likud and Labour face the challenge of centrists,
led by General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a former army chief-of-staff, and joined by
Yitzhak Mordechai, who was sacked as defence minister by Mr Netanyahu on
Saturday.

As for the Arab world, the balance of power is shifting, even though no single
country is yet willing to take the leadership role. The end of the cold war, the
Gulf war and the dramatic fall in the price of oil are creating a new regional
equilibrium.

Four countries emerge out of this morass.

Egypt, whose economy is doing much better, could play a leadership role, but
does not. It is too pre-occupied with the growing influence of Islamic
fundamentalists within its own borders and, to the south, in Sudan.

Iran, slowly emerging from its Islamic revolutionary phase, is beginning to take
centre stage as a result of the self-marginalisation of Iraq. Saudi Arabia has
abandoned any idea of playing a dominant role, obsessed as it is by money
worries and its own security and stability.

Lastly, Turkey is recovering its influence over the region, despite chronic
domestic instability, as disillusionment with Europe grows. The other actors do
not count. Syria knows its influence is greater in times of conflict than during
peace negotiations. Jordan and Libya, their leaders both ill, are dominated by
succession calendars.

Pan-Arabism no longer exists. Pan-Islamism does, but provides little more than a
vague sense of belonging. And Israel, more inward-looking than interested in the
evolution of its regional environment, only seeks short-term gain from the
disarray of its neighbours.

Israelis, indeed, sometimes give the impression of ignoring the Arabs at large
and the Palestinians in particular.

That is unwise, particularly if one considers the position of the 1m
Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.

The behaviour of Palestinians, and that of Israel's Arab neighbours, can
influence the choices Israelis make, starting with the forthcoming elections.
The bombing campaign by Hamas and the abstention of Israeli Arabs no doubt
played a part in Mr Netanyahu's first election victory. Does the Palestinian
Liberation Organisation really want the Labour party back in power, or does it
see no difference between the policies of Labour and Likud?

In the long-term, the future of Israel depends at least as much on the peaceful
and balanced integration of the region as on the solution to the question: "Who
is a Jew?"

Israel has a choice: it can either be a "global ghetto" or a "regional bridge".
It has to find a way to live with the Palestinians.

At the end of the second world war, Joseph Rovan, liberated from a German
concentration camp, reflected that France had had the Germany it deserved. He
went on to become one of the principal architects of Franco-German
reconciliation.

In the end, the Israelis will have the Palestinian neighbours they deserve. The
sin of indifference may prove to be just as damaging as the realities of
domination. The author is deputy director of the Paris-based Institut Francais
des Relations Internationales and editor of Politique Etrange're. He writes here
in a personal capacity.

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January 21, 1999, Thursday USA EDITION 1

Posh nosh
OBSERVER COLUMN

SECTION: OBSERVER; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 59 words

Posh nosh

Pity the poor American looking for a square meal in Budapest. Uncle Sam's
citizens have been told not to eat in three new restaurants there because
they're owned by Corinthia - a group with Libyan connections. US sanctions
against Libya are in force and the penalty for violating them is $ 11,000. The
cuisine would have to be worth it.

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January 20, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Jordan awards dams contract

BYLINE: By Kerin Hope in Athens

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 07

LENGTH: 324 words

DATELINE: Athens

Aegek, a specialist Greek construction company, has won a DM180m (92m, $ 107m)
contract to build two dams in Jordan in partnership with Hydrogrania, a Serbian
contractor with expertise in dam-building and irrigation projects.

The Mojib dam and the smaller Wala Dam, costing DM120m and DM60m respectively,
will supply an irrigation network close to the Dead Sea, which is part of an
extensive water conservation programme planned by the Jordanian government. Work
is due to start next month and both dams will be completed in 42 months.

The Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development is to cover 70 per cent of the
project cost, with the remaining 30 per cent coming from the Jordanian
government. It is the first time a Greek company has won a government contract
in Jordan, Aegek said.

Athens-based construction companies have stayed away from the Middle East for
almost two decades, because successive Greek governments were unable to provide
export credit guarantees. Several leading Greek contractors faced bankruptcy in
the early 1980s after payment was withheld for public works projects awarded by
the governments of Iraq and Libya.

Pantelis Skarmoutsis, Aegek's financial director, said the company was keen to
diversify outside Greece before the current wave of EU-funded infrastructure
projects ends. Aegek, a tunnel and bridge-building specialist, has orders worth
Dr130bn ($ 463m) for public works projects in Greece. It is also building a $
22m private office block in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

The Serbian contractor will provide know-how for the dam projects, but cannot
contribute cash as a result of international financial sanctions imposed against
the Yugoslav federation for failing to resolve the conflict in Kosovo.

"Hydrogrania is technically strong and has built more than 60 dams around the
world, but it's financially weak. It can't get a bank guarantees for example,"
Mr Skarmoutsis said.

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January 18, 1999, Monday LONDON EDITION 2

Turkey angry as Kurd guerrilla leader leaves Italy and vanishes

BYLINE: By Paul Betts in Milan

SECTION: BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 459 words

DATELINE: Milan

Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish guerrilla leader and Turkey's public enemy number
one, disappeared yesterday after flying from Rome on Saturday to an undisclosed
destination, to the evident relief of the Italian government.

Lamberto Dini, the Italian foreign minister, said "an ugly story" had ended "in
the best way possible".

Mr Ocalan's arrival in Italy at first sparked joy and then anger in Ankara when
Rome refused to extradite him to face terrorism and murder charges, on the
grounds that Turkey has the death penalty.

The Rome government made it clear he had outstayed his welcome. Security forces
escorted him from the villa where he has spent the past weeks to a private
aircraft. His presence in Italy had severely damaged trade and diplomatic
relations with Turkey, a Nato ally and important destination for exports.

But the decision to allow Mr Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers' party
(PKK), to leave the country a free man drew an angry response from Ankara.

"Italian officials failed to solve the problem they created and did not behave
according to the requirements of law and justice," the Turkish foreign ministry
said yesterday.

Bulent Ecevit, the Turkish prime minister whose government was confirmed by a
vote in parliament yesterday, pledged that "the head of the bloody terrorist
organisation will not be able to be sheltered anywhere".

Mr Ocalan's whereabouts remained a mystery last night, although a PKK
representative in Moscow said he had arrived safely at his destination. He
suggested he might have gone to an African country.

Initial reports suggesting Mr Ocalan had flown to Moscow, from where he
originally arrived in Italy with a false passport last November, were firmly
denied by the Russian authorities and the Italian embassy in Moscow. Mr Ecevit
yesterday said Turkey was "trying to confirm where he is".

After Rome made it clear it was not prepared to grant Mr Ocalan political
asylum, he had sought a haven in other countries, both in Europe and Africa, but
with little success. Even Libya appeared reluctant to accept him.

The Ocalan affair also provoked tensions between Italy and its European Union
partners, especially Germany.

Italy arrested Mr Ocalan on his arrival in Rome in November because of an
international warrant issued by Germany.

But Bonn later refused to seek his extradition from Italy for fear of inflaming
tensions between the 2 million Turks and 500,000 Kurds living in Germany.

Italy found itself in the middle of what Mr Dini yesterday called "a serious
international problem". Pointing the finger at Germany, without naming it, he
said the affair had been a blow to efforts to integrate Europe's security and
co-operation. Ecevit interview, Page 2

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January 16, 1999, Saturday LONDON EDITION 2

Ulster parties compromise on peace timetable
N IRELAND SET UP OF 'CABINET' POSTPONED:

BYLINE: By John Murray Brown in Dublin

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 453 words

DATELINE: Dublin

Unionist and nationalist politicians yesterday agreed to postpone the setting up
of the power-sharing Northern Ireland executive, amid continuing Unionist
concerns about the IRA's failure to hand over weapons.

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader and the province's first minister, and
Seamus Mallon, the nationalist deputy first minister, agreed there would be no
final agreement on government structures at Monday's planned assembly debate.

They agreed instead to put the issue to a vote on February 15. The British and
Irish governments hope to be able to transfer responsibilities to 10 executive
departments on March 10.

Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, said the deal was
an attempt to rewrite the Good Friday agreement. "We have a right and
entitlements which, in my view will be honoured. If there is not going to be
Sinn Fein in cabinet, then there will be no cabinet," he said.

The compromise came after the Royal Ulster Constabulary arrested eight dissident
republicans in connection with an attack on a police station in west Belfast.
Ronnie Flanagan, the Royal Ulster Constabulary chief constable, said dissidents
planned to extend their activity to other parts of the province.

Separately, police in the Republic of Ireland unearthed an arms cache near the
border. It included Soviet-manufactured anti-aircraft guns, capable of hitting
helicopters, which are assumed to be part of an IRA stock smuggled from Libya in
the mid 1980s.

Unionists insist the IRA starts disarming before Sinn Fein can take up its two
ministerial seats. With the governments due to complete legislative preparations
by mid-February, the UUP calculates the delay will increase pressure for
decommissioning.

An Irish official yesterday said that Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland secretary,
would be unlikely to urge the setting up of the executive if there was no
movement from the IRA for fear of a unionist withdrawal, threatening the entire
process.

Mr Mallon expressed disappointment. "The reality was we weren't going to get
cross-community support," he said. "But February 15 has now been agreed by the
UUP and SDLP and cross-community support is ensured for that date."

Sean Neeson, leader of the bicommunal Alliance party, accused unionists of
"delaying tactics" warning any further delay would make it impossible to meet
the March 10 timetable.

But Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister said: "We might all have wished that
it would have been possible to proceed with the establishment of the
institutions at an earlier point. But now that we have agreement on the way
forward, it is imperative to ensure that the timeframe outlined is adhered to in
full."

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January 8, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

Mandela seeks Lockerbie solution

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 65 words

Mandela seeks Lockerbie solution

South African president Nelson Mandela made a last ditch attempt to resolve the
impasse over the extradition of Libyan suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie airline
bombing. Following talks with Tony Blair, Mr Mandela said they were "on the way
to resolving all outstanding issues", which would also lead to the lifting of
sanctions against Libya. Page 4

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January 8, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 3

Mandela bid to end impasse over Lockerbie

BYLINE: By Robert Peston, Political Editor, in Pretoria

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 488 words

DATELINE: Pretoria

Nelson Mandela, the South African president, yesterday made a last ditch attempt
to resolve the impasse over the extradition of Libyan suspects in the 1988
Lockerbie airline bombing.

Following talks at his official residence with Tony Blair, the British prime
minister, Mr Mandela said they were "on the way to resolving all outstanding
issues", which would also lead to the lifting of sanctions against Libya.

The two government heads have agreed that Mr Mandela's senior foreign affairs
official, Jakes Gerwel, will fly to Tripoli with Prince Bandar, the Saudi
ambassador to Washington, for a special meeting with Colonel Muammer Gadaffi,
the Libyan leader.

Mr Blair has asked the United Nations sanctions committee for a special
dispensation to allow the diplomats' aircraft to land in Tripoli. He has
accepted the need to reassure Colonel Gadaffi that the UK and US have genuinely
given in to the Libyan request for the two suspects to be tried in a neutral
third country, the Netherlands.

But a senior UK official said Mr Blair was not prepared to concede any further
Libyan demands. He would not, for example, permit imprisonment of the two -
Abdul Basset Ali al Megrahi and Leman Khalifa Fhimah - anywhere apart from
Scotland, where the atrocity took place.

Mr Blair, in an open air press conference, lavished praise on Mr Mandela, who is
due to retire this year and is likely to be replaced by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki.
Mr Mandela represented "politics as it can and should be" and had been "a
shining light" which would never be diminished.

On the second day of his South African sojourn, Mr Blair announced a 40 per cent
increase in British aid to £90m over the coming three years. This would be spent
on education, environmental projects and initiatives to promote public sector
reform and democracy.

The two governments also signed a Declaration of Intent that British defence
companies expected to win defence contracts worth about £1bn from South Africa
would match this with significant industrial investment. "It's a way of
reassuring the South Africans" said a senior British official.

However Mr Blair's visit has prompted popular protest at the UK's involvement in
the recent air strikes on Iraq. Moslem demonstrators in Cape Town yesterday
burnt the union flag and chanted "death to Tony Blair" before being dispersed by
South African police firing stun grenades.

Mr Blair will today address the South African parliament in Cape Town, although
much of his message will be directed at the UK, following the resignations of
three senior members of his government over the past month.

He will say that his government is embarked on "the transformation of the
country and its institutions" and is prepared to risk attacks from its
traditional supporters. Tough new measures to crack down on juvenile crime will
be foreshadowed, which Mr Blair fears will be regarded as "authoritarian".

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December 31, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Oil minnows might find that they are on the menu:
Exploration and production companies are looking vulnerable,
writes Thorold Barker:

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 759 words

Acollapse in crude prices has left the UK's oil exploration and production
companies facing one of the biggest challenges in their history.

A global surplus, economic problems in Asia and mild weather have pushed Brent
crude down from about $ 16.50 to $ 10.50 a barrel in a year, despite renewed
tension in the Gulf.

Share prices have been ravaged. The combined market capitalisation of UK E&P
stocks has fallen from £9.75bn in January to £3.92bn yesterday.

The sector even lost its FTSE 100 representation in September, when Enterprise
Oil and Lasmo were ejected.

Hopes that oil prices would bounce back quickly, as they did when they fell
below $ 9 in 1986, have given way to an acceptance that the new level could
persist.

E&P companies, which have planned investments on the assumption that oil would
fetch about $ 15-$ 20 a barrel, have had to look for ways to adapt.

The priority has been to reduce discretionary spending. Lasmo has halved its
exploration budget, from £110m in the current year to £55m next year.

Premier Oil, a middle-ranking UK independent, is expected to go even further,
budgeting about £12m in 1999, compared with £40m for this year.

This helps solve short-term cash shortages, but Richard Savage of SG Securities,
the broker, thinks it also creates a risk. "If people really believed the oil
price would stay at this level for ever, there would be no reason for many E&P
companies to exist.

"They have to keep investing. Enterprise's poor operational performance in the
early 1990s was due to it cutting back its exploration budget too far."

It is a fine balance. Companies need to position themselves to benefit from any
price recovery, while not overexposing themselves if prices stay low.

Fears that Lasmo and Premier, despite their exploration cuts, have taken on too
many commitments have caused their shares to slide 40 per cent and 39 per cent
respectively in the past two months.

The big integrated oil groups have responded to the new environment by
aggressively cutting operating costs. British Petroleum believes it can save $
2bn a year following its takeover of Amoco of the US, while Shell has announced
plans for annual savings of $ 2.5m by 2001.

Most of the savings will come from restructuring downstream marketing and
refining operations.

Iain Reid, of Warburg Dillon Reid, the broker, believes E&Ps, with only upstream
operations, do not have the same scope for cost cutting. "It's always been a
lean sector, there isn't much cost to take out without harming the business," he
says.

Nevertheless, the larger E&P companies are looking for opportunities to reduce
operating costs.

Last month, Lasmo announced plans to save £30m a year by axing up to 60 per cent
of head office staff. It is focusing its operations on onshore areas, such as
Venezuela and Libya, where production is cheap.

Enterprise hopes to pool assets with other producers. In some areas, such as the
North Sea, it could share support services, including ships and warehousing,
with partners.

But the industry's attempts to adapt will not bear fruit overnight. Meanwhile,
investors' aversion to the sector has created attractive valuations for
potential predators.

1998 has been the year of the oil mega-merger, led by Exxon's takeover of Mobil
and BP's acquisition of Amoco. But investors reacted badly to the only
significant deal between UK E&Ps - the merger of British-Borneo Petroleum
Syndicate and Hardy Oil & Gas in September.

The deal was based on the two's complementary assets and cash flows, and there
were few cost savings.

Analysts thought British-Borneo, the larger of the two, was risking its solid
financial position by taking on a weaker partner.

Its shares have since underperformed the sector by some 30 per cent.

In the light of British-Borneo's performance Mr Savage says: "Help is likely to
come from outside, since consolidation within the sector provides few
opportunities for cost savings."

Mr Reid estimates Lasmo's reserves at $ 2 a barrel, while it costs the big oil
groups about $ 3.50 to find and develop reserves themselves. "At these levels,
international oil majors, some of whom have underinvested in exploration, could
pick up [E&P companies] for loose change," he says.

Analysts say it is only a matter of time before bargains flush out bidders.

Andrew Shilston, Enterprise finance director, says: "The industry has an
appallingly efficient food chain. In a year's time, at these [oil] prices, it
could look very different from today."

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December 22, 1998, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Gadaffi diminishes hopes for early trial of suspects
NEWS DIGEST

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 08

LENGTH: 153 words

Colonel Gadaffi of Libya yesterday diminished hopes of an early trial for the
two suspects accused of blowing up Pan Am flight 103, which crashed on Lockerbie
in Scotland 10 years ago, killing 270 in the aircraft and on the ground.

Col Gadaffi told Dutch television he believed the Libyan suspects should be
tried by an international court, comprised of judges from the US, UK, Libya and
elsewhere.

His comments came as a blow to London and Washington, which had hoped the Libyan
leader would agree to a compromise solution that the trial should be heard by a
Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.

Britain and the US last night vowed to bring to justice those responsible for
the Lockerbie bombing as the world paid tribute to its victims.

The pledge came from Tony Blair, the prime minister, and President Bill Clinton,
in messages read out at a 10th anniversary service in the town. George Parker

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December 21, 1998, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Changing tack on Saddam:
The UK and US are adjusting their strategy of containment in
dealing with Iraq in favour of a three-prong approach, writes
David Gardner:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 1123 words

After 70 hours, 400 cruise missiles and 200 air strikes, the latest blitz on
Iraq is over. A domestically embattled President Bill Clinton and his ally in
Operation Desert Fox, Tony Blair, the British prime minister, both say the
assault has significantly damaged Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes and power
structure.

They intend to pursue a "strategy of containment", by reinforcing sanctions on
Iraq and keeping their forces in the Gulf, "ready to strike again if he [Saddam]
again poses a threat to his neighbours or develops weapons of mass destruction,"
as Mr Blair said yesterday.

But already things look rather less simple than that.

To begin with, the Iraqi dictator is still there. His vainglorious declaration
yesterday of victory over "the enemies of God and humanity" is grotesque in all
except one respect: he has survived again, despite Mr Clinton and Mr Blair
spelling out their aim, over time, to remove him. It is a considerable part of
Mr Saddam's aura of power that he can repeatedly withstand the onslaughts of the
world's lone superpower.

Second, those permanent members of the UN Security Council angered by the US-UK
action are already calling for a radical review of how the world deals with
Iraq. President Jacques Chirac of France - which discreetly distanced itself
from the bombing, unlike Russia and China which indignantly opposed it -
yesterday called for an easing or lifting of the eight-year UN oil embargo on
Iraq.

Third, Arab regimes whose support Washington and London claimed are now
fearfully anticipating popular reaction. Some have authorised protests which
normally they would crush, in the hope of muffling the clarion calls of Islamist
organisations to a holy war against the west and its Arab allies. Demonstrations
- in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Yemen, Morocco and Libya
- have been furious but limited. So far.

Yet the 70 hours of bombing has been more than enough to wipe out any credit Mr
Clinton won through the 70 hours he devoted to brokering October's Wye
Plantation accord between Israel and the Palestinians. That was suspended by
Israel yesterday anyway. The American flags distributed 10 days ago to welcome
the US president on his historic visit to Gaza were by the end of last week
burning, while Palestinians were disinfecting the tiles in Manger Square in
Bethlehem where Mr Clinton had attended a carol service.

This may be the price Mr Clinton has paid in the Arab world. But what sort of
strategy do the US and UK have? What will their allies think of it? And what is
Mr Saddam, the object of this attention - not all of it disagreeable to him -
likely to do?

The easiest of these questions to answer, paradoxically, is the last. The damage
to the Saddam regime, whose underpinnings such as the intelligence services and
the elite Republican Guard were heavily targeted, is not clear, despite US and
British claims to have "degraded" them. What is certain is that Mr Saddam will
be devoted for some time to securing his power base. Such "regime maintenance"
is likely to include a viciously careful new audit of wavering and dissent.
Already, Iraqi opposition groups claim, Baghdad has shelled two areas in the
predominantly Shia south, which launched a failed insurrection against the
regime at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

For their part, Washington and London appear to be anticipating adjustment
rather than change in the "containment" policy employed since 1991. Until now,
this has been based on three elements: what Mr Clinton yesterday called "the
most extensive sanctions in UN history"; the UN Special Commission (Unscom)
inspectors mandated to uncover and destroy Iraq's chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons; and periodic force to compel compliance. The new three-prong
strategy would appear to be based on deterrence, encouraging the Iraqi
opposition, and reinforced sanctions.

Deterrence - the credible threat that force will be used if Baghdad either
threatens its neighbours or recreates germ weapons and nerve gas - has worked
with Mr Saddam before. Before the Gulf War, when he threatened to "burn half of
Israel" in reprisal for any allied attack, he was told if he used
non-conventional weapons Iraq faced annihilation. Although he used chemical
weapons at the end of the 1980-88 war with Iran, and against Iraq's Kurds, he
did not dare in the "mother of all battles".

Deterrence has also worked in terms of "conventional" warfare. After the US
rushed forces to the Gulf in late 1994 when Iraqi forces appeared once more to
be converging on Kuwait, Baghdad was told that certain movements by specified
units in spelt-out directions would trigger attack.

Deterrence, therefore, can work. Whether it can be expanded and continue to do
so, however, may have been put in doubt by Operation Desert Fox. That is because
those countries unhappy with the bombing will undoubtedly become more so if the
willingness to use force, upon which deterrence depends, is at the ultimate
discretion of Washington.

Another uncertainty concerns President Clinton's domestic travails. How
cynically will people come to see last week's military action in the light of
the unfolding drama of the US president's impeachment proceedings?

The second prong of the strategy, western backing for Mr Saddam's opponents, has
a violent and tawdry past, and an at best uncertain future. The Iraqi despot has
survived for 30 years by ruthless efficiency, not accident, and his recognisable
opponents are based abroad, split into 73 groups, often at each other's throats.
A sudden convulsion inside the regime is much more plausible - prior to Mr
Saddam this was an almost yearly occurrence - but even more uncertain in its
outcome.

Nor can the US-UK idea that sanctions will continue unmodified into the
indefinite future be assumed. Mr Chirac's call yesterday for a review of the oil
embargo, centred on the urgent need to "improve the living conditions of the
Iraqi people", was swiftly echoed by Russia. As the UN has extensively
documented, the living, health and education standards of ordinary Iraqis have
been devastated, while the grip of their rulers on power - financed by
smuggling, black marketeering and clandestine foreign assets - has strengthened.

Dennis Halliday, who recently resigned as the co-ordinator of the UN's
"oil-for-food" programme, under which Iraq can import food and medicine through
UN-controlled oil exports, complained sanctions that were ineffective were
"immoral". In a little noticed interview thereafter, he observed that there were
signs of change brewing in Iraq - among radical young ruling Ba'ath party cadres
increasingly inclined to dismiss Mr Saddam as too moderate.

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December 21, 1998, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

IMF second thoughts

SECTION: FT GUIDE TO THE WEEK; Pg. 38

LENGTH: 1313 words

The International Monetary Fund releases a new review of world economic
prospects - the second time in two years it has revised growth forecasts outside
its normal schedule. The document is likely to look at the impact of Russia's
debt default and rouble devaluation, at problems in Brazil, and at the market
turmoil triggered by the near-collapse of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge
fund.

Road to recycling

European Union environment ministers will try to reach common ground on a
directive aimed at minimising waste from vehicles which have reached the end of
their lives and at maximising re-use and recycling of their components. They
will also discuss a law aimed at preventing depletion of the ozone layer and a
strategy to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars. A common position is likely
to be reached on providing car buyers with information on fuel economy.

Flight 103 remembered

The 10th anniversary of the Lockerbie air disaster, in which Pan Am flight 103
blew up over Scotland killing all 259 on board and 11 on the ground, will be
marked by a concert at Westminster Cathedral featuring specially composed
commemorative music. Two men accused of causing the explosion and currently held
in Libya have yet to be brought to trial.

Flying visit

Portuguese government officials go to Zurich to settle a dispute with Swissair
over the valuation of TAP, the Portuguese national airline, in which Swissair
proposes to take a 20 per cent stake. TAP has put the airline's value at Esc80bn
(£280m) and Swissair at around Esc50bn.

Peace detail

Victor Ricardo, the Colombian government's peace commissioner, will meet a
representative of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's
biggest leftwing guerrilla group, to finalise details of peace talks scheduled
to start on January 7.

Banana war hots up

The US is expected to announce a list of goods from the European Union on which
it will levy import duties as the latest stage in a long-running dispute over
the EU's preferential treatment of banana imports from former colonies. EU trade
commissioner Sir Leon Brittan has warned the dispute threatens to sour EU-US
relations when they should be working together to alleviate world economic and
political crises. The US has refused to submit the dispute to a special World
Trade Organisation panel, claiming the process would take too long.

Fischer in London

Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, arrives in London at the end of a
tour of European capitals. He will meet British officials to outline the German
programme for its presidency of the European Union, which begins on January 1.
The relative size of Germany's contribution to the EU budget and of Britain's
rebate are likely to be discussed, as are tax harmonisation, the single
currency, agriculture reform and eastward expansion of the EU.

Netanyahu vote crisis

Benyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is expected to face a
no-confidence vote in the Knesset, where far-right factions opposed to the
signing of the Wye River land-for-security agreement with the Palestinians hope
to unseat the government.

Taipei's OECD bid

Taiwan and Japan hold an economic conference in Taipei to discuss Taiwan's farm
exports to Japan and agree on Japan's support for Taiwan's bid to join the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and other international
economic organisations.

Holiday

Pakistan.

FT Survey

Brazil.

TUESDAY 22

Macedonia talks

Greece's foreign minister, Theodoros Pangalos, visits Skopje for talks with
Macedonia's new pro-market government headed by Ljubco Georgievski, the
32-year-old prime minister. Greece and Macedonia are still at odds over the
former Yugoslav republic's name - which Greece says should be altered to avoid
implying a territorial threat to the northern Greek province of Macedonia. But
Greek companies are the biggest investors in Macedonia, and Mr Pangalos's talks
will also cover economic issues. Macedonia is keen for a Greek bank to acquire a
strategic stake in Stopanska Banka, the country's biggest, following the
collapse of a deal with Austria's Erste Bank. The presence of an EU-based bank
would help restore Macedonian savers' confidence after the loss of more than $
1bn (£625m) in foreign exchange deposits held in local banks during the Yugoslav
wars of secession, according to Macedonian officials.

Nuclear probe

Japan, the US and South Korea are scheduled to hold a deputy ministerial-level
meeting in Washington to discuss how to persuade North Korea to allow inspection
of suspected underground nuclear facilities.

Ukrainian budget

The Ukrainian government will submit a second draft of its 1999 budget to the
supreme rada (parliament). After cuts in presidential and government
administration and provision for the full payment of overdue wages and pensions,
the budget is said to be nearly deficit-free.

Holiday

Zimbabwe.

WEDNESDAY 23

Bribery trial

Three Belgian former ministers and a leading French businessman are due to hear
the verdict in the country's bribery "trial of the century". The 11 accused
include Willy Claes, former Nato secretary-general and Belgian economics
minister, and Serge Dassault, the French industrialist.

Banana verdict

Canaan Banana, former president of Zimbabwe, appears in court for sentence on 11
charges of sexual assault. He could face several years in jail but it is thought
President Robert Mugabe may pardon him. Banana was in hiding in South Africa
until December 15 when he was handed over to Zimbabwean police. He now faces
further charges of jumping bail and leaving the country illegally.

Gas agreement

Leonid Kuchma, the Ukrainian president, leaves for Turkmenistan for talks with
Saparmurad Niyazov, his counterpart, and to sign an agreement on the shipment of
15bn cubic metres of gas from Turkmenistan next year.

Holiday

Japan.

THURSDAY 24

Every vote counts

The 49-strong population of Pitcairn, a 35 sq km British Pacific colony, are due
to take part in elections for the island's 10-member council. There are no
political parties.

Holidays

Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary,
Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Congo, New Zealand, Singapore.

FRIDAY 25

Mighty Joe Younger

A Disney remake of the 1949 film Mighty Joe Young opens in the US with two
veterans of the original version, Ray Harryhausen, an effects technician and
Terry Moore, the heroine, in cameo roles.

Selling the Dome

A determined effort begins to restore public confidence in Britain's £760m
Millennium Dome project with the launch of a television and poster advertising
campaign.

Holidays

Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Argentina, Brazil,
Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, US, Venezuela, Benin, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Cyprus, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast,
Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Palestinian Authority, Senegal, South
Africa, Togo, Zimbabwe, Australia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka.

SATURDAY 26

Test for England

England plays Australia in the fourth test match in Melbourne.

Holidays

Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece,
Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, Canada, Cyprus, Ghana, Nigeria, South
Africa, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, Tasmania. Compiled by Roger Beale Fax 44 171 873
3196

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December 19, 1998, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Europeans rally to allies' cause
TRANSATLANTIC ALLIANCE NATO MEMBERS SHRUG OFF RUSSIAN ANGER:

BYLINE: By David Buchan

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - THE IRAQI CRISIS; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 442 words

As the only country to join the US in bombing Iraq, Britain has run into the
same hostile criticism and diplomatic retaliation as the US, but has so far
generally not been singled out for criticism as a US stooge.

Even France is expressing understanding for Britain's radically different
approach to Iraq, despite the fact that London and Paris committed themselves
earlier this month to forging a joint European defence policy.

Yesterday continental European members of Nato swallowed any private
reservations about the wisdom of the Bagdhad bombing and rallied publicly to the
side of the US and Britain in the face of strong Russian criticism of the two
allies.

Russia went ahead with yesterday's session of its Permanent Joint Council with
Nato, but fielded its ambassador to Nato after President Boris Yeltsin ordered
his defence minister, Igor Sergeyev, to boycott the meeting with his Nato
counterparts in protest at the bombing of Iraq.

In his place, Russia's envoy to Nato, Sergei Kiseljak, delivered a stinging
attack on the US and Britain, even accusing Washington of launching the strikes
just to test its latest weapons.

"Partly by overstating their case, the Russians prompted all the Nato allies,
including the Italians who were a bit wobbly about the bombing, to express their
solidarity with the US and UK," said one Nato diplomat. A day earlier, Italy's
prime minister had called the bombing "useless".

Britain's alliance with the US in the latest conflict is also in line with its
traditional tough line on Iraq. "When diplomats recognise a familiar pattern,
they do not get so excited," said the diplomat.

Britain was accused of slavishly serving American interests yesterday by Iraq's
deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, who said "they (the British) want to join the
(US) elephant like a small rat". Otherwise, Britain continued to be bracketed
with the US by, for instance, Libya which accused the two countries of "state
terrorism", a charge they have often levelled at Tripoli, by a senior Iranian
Moslem who accused the two countries of "arrogant tyranny", and by Russia which
has withdrawn its ambassadors from Washington and London.

In Paris, officials at the foreign ministry said they recognised that European
Union countries had "different interests and reflexes over Iraq", and that the
recent Franco-British declaration was focused on European defence and was only a
first step along a long road.

One official suggested it might even be a good idea for Tony Blair, the UK prime
minister, to gain credit with Washington so that he could not be attacked by the
US on the issue of European defence.

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December 17, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Turkish anger as court frees Kurdish leader
ABDULLAH OCALAN NEW DIPLOMATIC RIFT BETWEEN ROME AND ANKARA:

BYLINE: By James Blitz in Rome and Christopher de Bellaigue in Ankara

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 455 words

DATELINE: Ankara

A new diplomatic rift opened up between Italy and Turkey yesterday over Abdullah
Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish Workers' party (PKK), after a Rome court freed
him with full liberty to travel.

In an unexpected development, Rome's Court of Appeal said the PKK leader could
go free because Germany had formally withdrawn an international arrest warrant
for him.

Izmet Sezgin, Turkey's defence minister, said the decision was "grave" and
"injurious to international law".

The Turkish government claims Mr Ocalan is responsible for the deaths of 30,000
people in the Kurds' 14-year fight for self-determination.

Hoping to avert an immediate crisis, Massimo D'Alema, Italy's prime minister,
indicated that Mr Ocalan would be "kept under surveillance" on public order
grounds. He said decisions regarding his future would be "speeded up" and taken
"over the next few days".

Mr Ocalan's aides also made clear that the PKK leader, who arrived in Italy on
November 12 and is Turkey's most wanted man, would not immediately leave a
heavily protected villa on the outskirts of the Italian capital.

"He is a free citizen now, but he will stay in his villa in Rome," said Ahmed
Yaman, the Italian spokesman of the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan.

Turkey is continuing to press for Mr Ocalan to be sent to Ankara, but Italy's
constitution forbids extradition to countries which retain the death penalty.

In Strasbourg, the Council of Europe's ministerial committee began talks on
whether Mr Ocalan could be tried somewhere in Europe. But in Rome, Mr D'Alema
dashed hopes of a positive outcome to the negotiations.

"Since Turkey [a Council of Europe member] does not favour a trial for Mr Ocalan
outside its territory, that represents a very serious obstacle in the search for
any solution," he said.

Instead, a senior government official said the expulsion of Mr Ocalan to a third
country was increasingly emerging as Rome's preferred option to the crisis.

It was not clear which state would be willing to take him. Speculation that he
might be deported to Libya, Albania or Sweden has been scotched by government
officials in recent days.

Others have spoken of the possibility that he could be sent to Denmark or
possibly returned to Russia, which originally deported him last month.

James Rubin, US State Department spokesman, said yesterday the US had been in
contact with senior levels of the Italian, German and Turkish governments to
express the view that Mr Ocalan should not be set free.

But the PKK has very strong support among leftwing parties in the Italian
government. "We would need to ensure that he fully agreed with the choice of
country we send him to," said a senior official.

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December 16, 1998, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

West cautious over 'release' of Lockerbie suspects

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf in London

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 07

LENGTH: 413 words

The US and Britain reacted cautiously yesterday to reports that Libya may be
ready to hand over the two suspects charged with the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am
flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

According to Libyan television, the General People's Congress, Libya's top
legislative body, agreed a resolution yesterday that expressed satisfaction with
an arrangement whereby the suspects would be tried in the Netherlands.

But the Congress, which reflects Libyan leader Muammer Gadaffi's decisions,
added ambiguously that it had asked "these parties (Libya, Britain and the US)
to work to remove any obstacle that prevents the two suspects standing trial
before justice as soon as possible".

In Washington, a State Department spokesman, said: "We want to see confirmation
of Libya's position through the UN secretary-general," who is responsible for
facilitating the transfer of the two suspects.

Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general who flew to Libya earlier this month in an
effort to secure the surrender of the two suspects, said the report was
encouraging. But he was seeking more details and waiting to speak to Libya's
permanent representative to the United Nations.

With the 10th anniversary of the bombing on December 21 only days away, the US
and UK had hoped for movement on the Lockerbie issue.

But Mr Gadaffi has been playing with US and UK expectations since Washington and
London agreed in July to a Libyan proposal that the trial of Abdel Basset Ali
Mohamed al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah be held in the Netherlands by
Scottish judges. The US and UK decision led the UN Security Council to vote to
suspend six-year old sanctions imposed on Libya once the men were handed over.
The sanctions ban travel, arms sales and some puchases of oil equipment.

While sending signals he was willing to surrender the two Libyan intelligence
officers, Mr Gadaffi has stalled and raised a string of objections, chief among
them that the two suspects not be jailed in Scotland.

When Mr Annan went to Libya on December 5, Mr Gadaffi deliberately delayed their
meeting and had Libya's official media declare it was up to the general people's
Congress, not the leader, to make a decision on the two suspects.

Then, last week, Mohamed Belgacem Zwai, Libyan justice minister, said a Libyan
legal team would hold another round of talks with UN officials to seek further
clarifications on the trial, suggesting a final agreement was not yet imminent.
.

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December 16, 1998, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 2

Record crops cut tea prices:
High-quality blends remain in good demand

BYLINE: By Kunal Bose in Calcutta

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 32

LENGTH: 595 words

DATELINE: Calcutta

Tea prices have fallen at auction as India, Kenya and Sri Lanka, the three
leading producers, are bringing in record crops. Smaller producers such as
Indonesia and Bangladesh also have bigger crops than last year.

High-quality teas, constituting about 15 per cent of Indian production, remain
in good demand and are fetching higher prices than this time last year,
according to P.K. Sen, chairman of J. Thomas, the world's largest tea-broking
firm. Such teas are used for blending.

Russia, one of the biggest consumers of tea, returned to the Indian and Sri
Lankan auction centres in November after a lull of 2 1/2 months. Its return
helped prices of medium grades of orthodox and CTC (crush, tear and curl) teas
to recover.

"We were expecting Russia to buy a lot more tea to replenish depleted stocks.
The government should encourage Russia to use its rupee resources to buy tea
from here," said Mr Sen.

Industry officials say the fall in the Russian import duty on food items should
boost tea trade.

"With the buying power of the Russians declining significantly, we expect the
quality of the tea market there to deteriorate to some extent," said an official
at the Sri Lanka Tea Board.

Many Russians enjoy tea made from the Sri Lankan long-leaf, low-grown standard
and broken orange pekoe. However, because of the prevailing situation in the
country, these teas will now be sold in Russia "at slightly lower levels".

Russia is the most important export destination for both India and Sri Lanka.
Industry officials are worried that the economic crisis may force Russia to
import a lot more cheap tea from China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In spite of Russia stopping the import of tea since the end of August, India
increased total tea exports by 8.36m kg to 171.10m kg in the first 10 months of
1998.

"Iraq is buying a lot more tea from India this year," said Mr Sen. "The market
for Indian tea in the UK, the world's biggest tea importer, Ireland, Saudi
Arabia, the UAE, the US and Japan is growing. India's exports this year will be
about 200m kg against 203m kg in 1997. Once Russia sorts out its problems, it
will be business as usual with India."

According to Forbes & Walker, a broking house, total Sri Lankan tea exports to
the end of September were up 7.5m kg to 203.2m kg this year, even though the
Commonwealth of Independent States imported less tea. The unit value realisation
was Rs 190.59 a kg against Rs153.81 a kg in the same period last year.

However, the market has become difficult since then. Unlike India, which has a
huge domestic market, Sri Lanka exports more than 90 per cent of its production.
The country, which mainly manufactures whole leaf orthodox tea, has made big
inroads in the UAE, Turkey, Libya and Iraq.

Up to the end of October, the Indian crop at 726.1m kg this year was up nearly
40m kg on last year. "The 1998 Indian crop will be about 850m kg against 810m kg
last year," said Mr Sen. "The internal consumption will be 645m kg and,
therefore, not much tea will be carried forward to the next season."

Kenya, which suffered from bad weather in 1997, harvested 245.1m kg in the first
10 months of 1998 against 173.2m kg in the same period last year.

The Sri Lankan crop is 8.3m kg ahead at 233m kg. Somerville & Co, a broking
firm, said favourable weather in the final quarter could take the crop to about
290m kg this year against 276m kg in 1997.

Indonesia recovered well from last year's crisis to lift production by 14.3m kg
to 81.5m kg. The crop in Bangladesh is up 4.2m kg to 46.7m kg.

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December 16, 1998, Wednesday USA EDITION 1

Cautious reaction on Lockerbie

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 42 words

Cautious reaction on Lockerbie

The US and Britain reacted cautiously to reports that Libya may be ready to hand
over the two suspects charged with the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over the
Scottish town of Lockerbie. International news, Page 7

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December 16, 1998, Wednesday USA EDITION 2

Serb 'Super Grandpa' leads the challenge to Milosevic:
A 79-year-old former central bank governor has emerged as the
brains behind a new opposition coalition, writes Guy Dinmore:

SECTION: WORLD NEWS - EUROPE; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 975 words

From empty department stores to overburdened Red Cross soup kitchens, the same
story is told all over Belgrade. There is barely any money, hardly any work.

Social discontent is mounting in Serbia's cities. Payments of pensions are
months behind, estimates of the jobless rate range up to 50 per cent and the
average monthly wage is less than $ 100. The dinar is sliding in value.

The latest acts by the cash-strapped government - to impose new taxes and raise
the salaries of top officials to up to 20 times the national average - have only
served to raise the political temperature further.

In spite of Serbia's steady impoverishment in the wake of futile wars in former
Yugoslavia, the task of upsetting the ruling Socialist party of Slobodan
Milosevic has defeated several opposition coalitions over the past decade.

But a frail 79-year-old has become the inspiration for the most coherent threat
to Mr Milosevic yet.

Shopping bag in hand, gingerly making his way along Belgrade's icy pavements, he
can be seen chatting to strangers, collecting what he calls his "basic data" on
the economy and the nation's pulse.

Dragoslav Avramovic, a former governor of the Yugoslav central bank best known
for taming hyperinflation in 1994, has emerged to become the brains behind a
newly formed opposition coalition, the Alliance for Change.

With an energy that belies his age and 15 months of kidney dialysis, Mr
Avramovic believes the time has come to unite disparate opposition groups,
supported mainly by the urban middle class, with an equally fragmented and weak
trade union movement.

"Without working class support it would remain a right-centrist opposition with
a tinge of nationalism," Mr Avramovic says. "I really believe that only a
popular movement will have a chance."

The Alliance brings together other former members of the regime, such as an
ex-general, an ex-mayor of Belgrade and Milan Panic, a naturalised US citizen
who was briefly Yugoslav prime minister and heads California-based ICN
Pharmaceuticals.

They are joined by Zoran Djindjic, head of the Democratic party, and Vesna
Pesic, anti-war campaigner of the small Civic Alliance. Both were members of a
broader coalition which disintegrated because of personal rivalries last year
after a winter of anti-government street protests.

"The history of the Alliance members is chequered and difficult," Mr Avramovic,
a former World Bank economist, admits. "But this time no one can afford to pull
out. The question is whether we will be able to mount an effective campaign."

Last week Mr Avramovic spoke at an outdoor rally for the first time in more than
two years. Organised by independent trade unions it drew about 6,000 people in
the southern town of Kraljevo - a reasonable turnout given the snowy weather.
More rallies are planned across Serbia.

Mr Avramovic, known as "super grandpa" with a high ranking in opinion polls,
says the burning question is how long the regime can stave off complete economic
collapse, and at what point people will start to protest.

"It's a miracle that anything functions at all in our economy," he says,
attributing its resilience to a strong agricultural base, remittances from
abroad and a thriving "grey" sector.

Western embassies differ in their assessments. Some see a deepening crisis just
around the corner, estimating the government has exhausted its reserves and can
only print money to pay the state sector and keep a lid on social unrest. Last
week the dinar plummeted on the black market as state banks pumped out freshly
minted notes to try to suck up the "under the mattress" hard currency savings of
the beleaguered population.

Others disagree. "Milosevic has got 1999 banked," commented one diplomat. "The
country has got food, and oil from Libya. And with an openly declared enemy in
the US, he can call on the population for another year of sacrifice."

Mr Milosevic's skill is in channeling popular anger away from the regime to the
US and its allies. Serbs are broadly split between those who blame their plight
on the government and those who see the US and western sanctions as the chief
culprit.

The war against ethnic Albanian secessionists in Serbia's Kosovo province and
threats by Nato have given Mr Milosevic another justification for tightening the
nation's belt.

Mr Milosevic is likely to ignore the Alliance's call for early elections.
Opinion polls, though not renowned for their accuracy, indicate broad support
for a non-ideological government of technocrats, such as Mr Avramovic, with the
backing of Serb emigres.

Over the last month the US State Department, frustrated with the slow pace of
negotiations in Kosovo, has branded Mr Milosevic as "the problem" in the Balkans
and not the "guarantor of stability" he wants to be. Belgrade has accused
Washington of giving the green light to any attempt to remove Mr Milosevic by
saying the US would not "lose any sleep" if he were to go.

Before being silenced by a new media law, independent dailies drew comparisons
with the last days of Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator overthrown and
executed by his one-time supporters in 1989.

But a coup from within the system is looking less likely. A purge of the
security forces began with the sacking of Serbia's secret police boss and the
chief-of-staff of the Yugoslav army and is now penetrating to the lower ranks.
Rumblings of discontent are being neutralised.

At the first joint press conference of Alliance leaders this month, Mr Panic
boldly predicted the end of the regime within months.

But Mr Avramovic, while convinced the reclusive Mr Milosevic is weakening, is
more cautious and ready for the long haul. Back on the street he is greeted by
two passers-by. "How is inflation, professor?" one asks. The other inquires in
hope: "Are you active again?"

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December 12, 1998, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Dictator at the bar, how do you plead?:
After General Pinochet, who might be next, asks David Buchan:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 09

LENGTH: 1316 words

General Franco died well before international human rights law became
fashionable. Even so, he played it safe. In the 30 years he ruled Spain after
the second world war, he only went abroad once, to visit his fellow dictator
President Salazar of Portugal. And the generalissimo took precautions, arriving
by sea, it is said, with three cruisers and six destroyers.

If there is one clear lesson to be drawn from the case of ex-President Augusto
Pinochet of Chile, it is that former dictators are best advised to stay at home.
For it was the Chilean dictator's confidence that he could come to London, shop
at Harrods, and take tea with former prime minister Margaret Thatcher - all with
impunity - that has now put him at risk of being extradited to Spain on charges
of murder, torture and kidnapping.

Who else might be at risk? Incumbent dictators still seem to be safe, even if
they travel. When President Laurent Kabila of Congo went to Paris last week for
a Franco-African summit, the French government let it be known that it would not
entertain any attempt to put its invitee in the dock, because he had sovereign
immunity (unlike Gen Pinochet, he is a serving head of state). No western
government would dare arrest any visiting leader from China, with which the west
now has a dialogue on human rights and, more important, big commercial
contracts.

No doubt western governments would treat dictators of pariah states differently,
if they could get hold of them. "Clearly we couldn't have Saddam Hussein doing
his Christmas shopping at Harrods," said a UK minister; but then the Iraqi
dictator does not travel outside his country. Nor generally does President
Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. He has in recent years made the odd trip to
Russia (for peace negotiations over Kosovo) and to Greece (which is
traditionally pro-Serb). But the International War Crimes Tribunal on the former
Yugoslavia has yet to accuse him of anything, and unless or until it does, he is
probably safe, even outside his own country.

In these cases, "sovereign immunity" would seem not to apply even to serving
heads of state. For formers dictators, the UK ruling that such people cannot
claim sovereign immunity will make them hesitate even longer before they
finalise their travel plans. Ex-president Suharto is still in Indonesia and has
not been charged with anything by his successors. But he might think twice
before going abroad for medical treatment.

In theory, others who have taken refuge abroad could feel threatened by the
Pinochet ruling. But by and large they have chosen host countries which remain
impermeable to human rights law and have few or no extradition agreements with
other countries. Thus Idi Amin, the former Uganda dictator, is probably safe in
Saudi Arabia, as are Ethiopia's former dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam in
Zimbabwe and ex-President Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay in Brazil. An exception
could be Jean- Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti who may find himself
vulnerable if he stays in France.

But is the Pinochet precedent, which might lead to a trial in Spain of a
non-Spaniard accused of crimes committed outside Spain, open to abuse? The
spectre has been raised of the arrest in some third country of Lady Thatcher for
the sinking of the Belgrano (torpedoed with heavy loss of life during the
Falklands war just when, by some accounts, the battleship had turned back to
Argentina), or Ronald Reagan, the former US president, for his 1986 bombing of
Libya (in which some civilians were killed) or his use of receipts from secret
arms sales to Iran (actually illegal under US law) to fund anti-communist Contra
guerrillas in Nicaragua. However, such cases would probably be dismissed as
legally "frivolous", in the sense that the actions were acts of state (though
perhaps not in the Iran-Contra affair) and did not in any case constitute major
or systematic breaches of the laws of war or human rights.

Before jumping to too many conclusions about the wider impact of the Pinochet
affair, it may be necessary to wait to see how the case against the ex-dictator
actually fares. But it is not too early to detect a change in international
opinion and even international law wrought by the Pinochet affair.

The air of assumed impunity surrounding ex-dictators suddenly seems to have
evaporated; people are realising the ex-emperors have no clothes. One sign of
this was the way that other governments - Switzerland, Sweden and France - piled
in with their extradition requests in the wake of Spain's demand for Mr Pinochet
to be handed over. These other governments give priority to Spain's extradition
request, would probably be horrified if the Chilean senator ended up on their
soil, and are just jumping on the human rights bandwagon.

But a bandwagon there appears to be - even in Latin America. True, at this
week's Mercosur summit of the South American trade group, there was backing for
Chile's protest at Britain's behaviour in the Pinochet affair (though not from
Brazil). But the Mercosur leaders also said they "support the progressive
development of international norms on the criminal responsibility of individuals
who commit crimes of international transcendance".

However, it is in Europe that the new international human rights order is taking
shape fastest. This is happening partly through the activities of the
continent's investigating magistrates such as Judge Baltasar Garzon (who brought
the original indictments against Gen Pinochet) and partly through the broader
work of the Council of Europe and its human rights convention and court. "The
Council of Europe used to be a club of conventions between like-minded states
codifying what they already do," says Andrew Carter, the UK ambassador to the
Council. But in the past decade Russia, Ukraine and more than a dozen
ex-communist states have brought the Council's membership up to 40. "The task
now is to take in all these countries, but prevent our human rights standards
being diluted or weakened," Mr Carter says.

Outside Europe, the main bulwark against human-rights abuses is the new
International Criminal Court. The aim of the court is to provide a permanent
body where crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes could be
judged, if no national prosecution were launched. It will be mid-2000 at the
earliest before the necessary 60 states have not only signed but ratified the
convention and the court can start work.

If the international court were now already in existence, it could indeed have
provided the right forum for trying Gen Pinochet. The court can exercise
jurisdiction only if it gets the go-ahead from the accused's home state or or
from the state on whose territory the crimes were committed. In the Pinochet
case, that would mean Chile on both counts. But Chile actually signed the
convention in September just before the Pinochet affair blew up. Indeed before
the UK House of Lords, Gen Pinochet's lawyers argued the court could be an
appropriate forum to try their client. But human rights activists dismissed this
as a smokescreen put up in the knowledge that a working court is still some way
off. They also pointed out that the international court gives action through
national courts priority.

The major political obstacle still facing the international court and a new
world human rights order is the US opposition, rooted in Washington's fear that
its soldiers, spread out across the globe, will be the target of "frivolous"
charges of war crimes. The US voted against the court, essentially because it
would not be able to veto such suits. The Pinochet case has turned the US even
further against the idea. Seeing what a diplomatic-legal crisis a freewheeling
Spanish magistrate can unleash has, in the words of a senior White House
official, "only confirmed us in our opposition" to the putative world court.

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December 7, 1998, Monday LONDON EDITION 1

Libya refers handover to parliament
LOCKERBIE SUSPECTS ANNAN FAILS TO SECURE TIMETABLE FOR TRIAL:

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 06

LENGTH: 514 words

DATELINE: Cairo

The Libyan leadership resisted pressure over the weekend to hand over for trial
two men accused of masterminding the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie
in Scotland in 1988, by referring the decision to the Libyan parliament.

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, met Muammer Gadaffi, the
Libyan leader, for a 90 minute meeting in Libya on Saturday. Meetings between
Libyan and UN officials in New York in advance of Mr Annan's visit had prepared
the UN head for the probability that he would leave Libya without a firm
timetable for the handing over of the suspects for trial.

"They need to get the congress and the people involved," Mr Annan said on his
return journey to Tunisia on Saturday night, referring to the General People's
Congress, Libya's appointed legislature. "I hope that their own internal
discussions on an issue that is this sensitive and has gone on for so long will
be concluded fairly shortly," he said.

"[The Libyans] are serious and will require some time. . . So I hope that in the
not too distant future we will be able to give the families some good news and
that they can put this issue behind them," he added, referring to the families
of the 270 people who died when the aircraft exploded in December 1988.

But Libya's official news agency, Jana, yesterday poured cold water over western
hopes for a handover. "The Lockerbie problem is an invented and complicated one
and it is not logical and reasonable to solve it under the pressure of what is
called the 10th anniversary of the Pan Am accident," it said.

Robin Cook, UK foreign secretary, nonetheless appeared optimistic yesterday
following a telephone conversation with Mr Annan. "I am very encouraged by what
he tells me. Neither of us is going to predict what Colonel Gadaffi is going to
do, but I think you can sum up our mood as one of qualified optimism," he said.

Libya has agreed to allow Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa
Fhimah, the two suspects, to be tried in a Dutch court under Scottish law but
has rejected UK and US demands that, if convicted, they serve their sentences in
Scotland. Refusal by the UK and US to negotiate on this issue was stressed by Mr
Annan during his meeting with Col Gadaffi, who has said imprisonment should be
in the Netherlands or Libya.

Omar Montasser, Libyan foreign minister, is said to have told UN officials that
he will recommend to the General People's Congress that it accept the offer of a
trial in The Netherlands under Scottish law. The congress is is scheduled to
meet tomorrow and has never voted against the directives of the Libyan
leadership.

"Whether [Mr Montasser] will be able to do it on Tuesday or will require a bit
more time, I don't know," Mr Annan said. Earlier he said talks with Col Gadaffi
and officials had been "fruitful and positive", though this appeared to imply
that his Libyan hosts had been prepared to listen to his clear statement that
Libyan compliance was essential if economic sanctions and an air embargo in
force since April 1992 were to be lifted.

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December 7, 1998, Monday LONDON EDITION 2

Early Lockerbie trial unlikely

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 37 words

Early Lockerbie trial unlikely

Libya resisted pressure to hand over for trial two men accused of masterminding
the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in 1988, by referring the decision
to parliament. Page 6

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December 4, 1998, Friday LONDON EDITION 3

Annan to meet Gadaffi for Lockerbie talks

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf in London

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 439 words

DATELINE: London

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, makes a delicate trip to Libya
tomorrow amid hopes of Libyan readiness to surrender two suspects charged in the
December 1988 bombing of a Pan American flight over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie.

Mr Annan said yesterday he would meet Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, to
"look at solutions to the problem".

As the 10th anniversary of the bombing approaches, UN officials said Mr Annan's
decision to undertake the mission suggested he had good chances of success, but
they warned against too much optimism. Mr Annan's legal team has been engaged in
recent weeks in providing clarifications to the Libyans on their objections to
the trial.

Western diplomats said yesterday Mr Gadaffi had been signalling he might be
ready to hand over Abdul Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, the
accused intelligence officers, to be tried in a Dutch court by Scottish judges.
But they also warned that the Libyan leader was unpredictable.

He was, for example, quoted this week as demanding that the US and Britain drop
conditions set for the trial.

Last July, the US and Britain agreed to a Libyan proposal that the suspects be
tried in a third country, prompting the UN Security Council to vote to suspend
six-year-old sanctions imposed on Libya when the two men are handed over. The
sanctions, which ban travel, arms sales and some purchases of oil equipment,
would be permanently lifted once Tripoli co-operated with the court's demands
for witnesses and evidence.

Mr Gadaffi has agreed to the move in principle but he has demanded clarification
of a number of issues. The main sticking point has been a Libyan insistence
that, if found guilty, the two accused should serve their sentences in a third
country, not in Scotland.

The British Foreign Office said yesterday it hoped Mr Annan could persuade Mr
Gadaffi to surrender the suspects. "Kofi Annan fully recognises that the
US-British plan is non-negotiable. . . the best we can hope for from Saturday's
meeting is official notification that Gadaffi is prepared to hand over the
suspects," said a spokesman.

A UK official said yesterday no compromise would be made on the Scottish jail.
However, he said assurances had been given to Libya that the suspects, if
imprisoned, would have access to Libyan diplomats and their religious needs
would be catered for.

Earlier this week, Robin Cook, foreign secretary, said comprehensive answers to
Libyan requests for clarifications had been provided. "These answers show that
we have no hidden agenda and that what we have proposed is fair and workable,"
he said.

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December 4, 1998, Friday USA EDITION 2

US wheat producers eye opportunities in Cuba

BYLINE: By Pascal Fletcher in Havana

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 06

LENGTH: 406 words

DATELINE: Havana

US wheat and flour pro-ducers, irked at seeing their world market share
curtailed by US government economic sanctions, are sizing up the nearby Cuban
market in preparation for the day when the US trade embargo against the island
is eased or lifted.

Representatives of both the US wheat farming sector and the US agribusiness
industry were prominent at a meeting in Havana this week of the Caribbean
Millers' Association, which groups regional flour millers, including Cuba.

"There is clearly a desire on the part of US wheat producers to access the Cuban
market," said Paul Dickerson, a vice-president of US Wheat Associates, a
Washington-based non-profit market development association that represents the
export interests of US wheat farmers.

Mr Dickerson said that current US economic sanctions against countries such as
Cuba, Iran and Libya meant that just over 10 per cent of the annual global wheat
trade of 98m tonnes was "off limits" to US producers, although their market
share was still 32 per cent.

Pamela Falk, a Cuba expert at New York's City University who also attended the
millers' meeting, said there was growing interest in the US agribusiness sector
in selling food to Cuba. "It's seen as something that helps both the Cuban
people and US farmers," she said.

Participating in the meeting were representatives of Caribbean subsidiaries and
affiliates of US corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and
Continental Grain. Both are known to be actively lobbying the US government to
ease its embargo policy towards communist-ruled Cuba. A representative of the
American Bakers Association also attended.

Opponents of unilateral US sanctions in the US agribusiness industry strongly
supported efforts this year in the US Congress to introduce legislation that
would ease the current embargo policy to allow sales of US food and medicines to
Cuba. Although these efforts have been unsuccessful so far, they were expected
to be repeated in the next congressional session.

The time seemed ripe, Mr Dickerson said, to get to know Cuba's market better. He
estimated its current size at more than 1m tonnes a year of wheat and flour, by
far the biggest in the Caribbean.

He added that as a goodwill gesture to the people of Cuba, US wheat farmers had
sent a second 20-tonne container of wheatflour, milled in the Caribbean from
donated US wheat, to the Catholic charity Caritas on the island.

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December 3, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Controversy leaves US 'straddling fence':
Washington is weighing human rights concerns against Chilean
relations and pondering the implications a retired general's case
has for other rulers, writes Stephen Fidler:

SECTION: THE AMERICAS; Pg. 08

LENGTH: 771 words

As General Augusto Pinochet waits in the Surrey countryside for a decision by a
British politician on whether he can be extradited to Spain to face trial,
Washington has come down firmly on neither side of the controversy.

The US reaction so far has constituted "fence straddling", a US official
admitted this week, reflecting what he said was an internal debate within the
administration on how to react to the case.

Washington has condemned the human rights abuses of the Pinochet era - but said
that the views of the Chilean government, which wants the general returned home,
should be listened to.

This week, the State Department announced it would declassify US documents that
shed light on abuses by his government. But - reflecting the debate inside the
administration - it has refrained from giving an opinion on the UK House of
Lords' ruling that the general was not entitled to sovereign immunity for human
rights crimes.

The case has created an obvious dilemma for Washington. "On the one side, the US
has very close relations with Chile - and owes it something because it could not
bring it into the North American Free Trade Agreement as promised - and
supported the whole approach taken by Chile to its democratic transition," said
Peter Hakim, president of the InterAmerican Dialogue, a Washington think-tank.

"On the other, there are the human rights considerations, particularly when
there is so much pressure from human rights groups around the world."

The delicacy of the human rights issues is further heightened by the fact that
one act of violence perpetrated by the Pinochet regime took place in
Washington's Embassy row: the 1976 car bombing and murder of Orlando Letelier,
an exiled former Socialist cabinet minister, and his US assistant, Ronnie
Moffitt.

No evidence has been found linking Gen Pinochet directly with the murders, but
an intelligence chief, Manuel Contreras, has been sentenced in Chile for his
role.

At the heart of Washington's dilemma is a question being asked by governments in
capitals around the world following last week's ruling: What does this decision
mean for us?

At its most extreme, one consequence is that current and former US officials
could find themselves pursued through foreign courts for their actions in
office: Ronald Reagan's bombing of Libya, or Bill Clinton's of Sudan and
Afghanistan, for example.

The ruling also has potential implications for all countries where a transition
to democracy has taken place, such as South Africa and most of Latin America.

It could also potentially inhibit future transitions, for example in Cuba, and
raises questions about whether the 1995 Dayton peace accord on Bosnia - which
brought Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to the US - could have taken place
if they feared they could end up in US courts.

Moreover, it raises the possibility that human rights cases against foreigners
will be pursued in an ad hoc fashion around the world, most often in countries
which have least at stake in any resulting controversy.

According to Bernard Aronson, an assistant US secretary of state for
Inter-American affairs from 1988 to 1993: "I think the whole issue points to a
large gap in international law that has to be filled." That suggests the ruling
has strengthened the case for an international court on human rights, a creation
that the US has in the past resisted.

Mr Aronson says the Pinochet case should not be viewed as an isolated incident.
"It's part of a much broader trend of globalisation that's not only economic but
also covers issues such as the environment, human rights, workers' standards and
workers' rights. This case is happening in the transition period where we
haven't gone far enough in confronting these issues."

Whatever, the long-term consequences, Gen Pinochet's immediate fate is in the
hands of Jack Straw, the UK home secretary.

His decision is one which officials in Washington say they are pleased they do
not have.

Mr Hakim says the ball is now in the Chilean court. With the Chilean government
no longer able to argue sovereign immunity, it will have to demonstrate to Mr
Straw that if the general returns home, things will not stay the same.

Many doubt that the general can be effectively tried in Chile, and some fear the
effects on Chilean society if this happens.

Mr Hakim says it may be time to extend the work of the country's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, which detailed human rights abuses and their victims
in a 1991 report.

It never named the perpetrators - but Mr Hakim says that now may be the time for
this to happen.

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December 2, 1998, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 2

Bigger asset base is key to future growth
EXXON CHAIRMAN SPELLS OUT REASONS:

BYLINE: By Robert Corzine

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 30

LENGTH: 422 words

The pecking order for answering reporters' questions yesterday left no doubt
about who will be in charge of Exxon Mobil.

Although Lee Raymond, Exxon chairman, was careful to ensure that Lucio Noto, his
vice-chairman designate, had a chance to respond, it was made abundantly clear
what the relationship between the two strong-willed men will be: "I will work
for Lee," said Mr Noto, who went on to wonder why so many people should be
surprised. "After all," he said, "I worked for a boss for 32 of the 36 years
I've been at Mobil."

That answered one big question that has hung over the proposed deal between the
two companies since it was first disclosed last week.

Mr Noto also confirmed that companies such as Mobil had reached the limit on
what they could do to take out costs and boost performance within the confines
of a single company. "The BP Mobil deal in Europe showed that we had run up
against those limits," he said. That made it imperative to "look outside the
box" of conventional thinking for the next move to boost returns.

Last night the two men went to some lengths to explain the rationale for
creating the world's biggest oil company.

The key to understanding the deal, said Mr Raymond, was not size per se, but the
need to raise capital productivity in the light of an increasingly competitive
environment: "That's the system that has worked in Exxon for the last 10 years."

Although that system has enabled Exxon consistently to lead the industry in its
most important performance measure - the return on average capital employed - it
clearly had its limitations. Although all investments had to be of high quality
in order to get the go ahead, over time greater amounts of capital might not be
directed into the "most attractive core area", he said. That could be because of
a lack of opportunities or merely because the time was not ripe to make the more
attractive investments.

An asset base that is 30 per cent bigger will enable the enlarged group to tap
opportunities and to fine tune individual business areas.

But size and an expanded asset base will not alter the fact that Exxon Mobil
will still be barred from some big oil producing countries, such as Iran and
Libya, both subject to unilateral US sanctions. Mr Noto, who has been especially
keen to see the US drop its opposition to oil investment in Iran, said the
opening of such countries "was not an essential ingredient in this merger,"
although he expected the combined group to continue its lobbying in Washington.

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November 28, 1998, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Lasmo to axe 200 staff in response to fall in oil prices

BYLINE: By Thorold Barker

SECTION: BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 22

LENGTH: 375 words

Lasmo, the UK's second largest independent oil company, is cutting 200 head
office jobs in a restructuring programme aimed at saving £30m a year in response
to the fall in oil prices.

More responsibility is to be devolved to the company's business units, which are
being re-organised into six groups covering Europe and North Africa, Indonesia,
Venezuela, Libya, Pakistan, and the Middle East. There will be more outsourcing,
particularly in information technology and finance.

John Hogan, chief operating officer, and Dick Smernoff, finance director, are
relinquishing their executive roles, but will remain on the board until the
annual meeting in April next year. Chris Wright has been appointed group
managing director and Paul Murray group finance director.

The changes will result in an exceptional charge of £30m-£40m in the current
financial year. Savings are expected to be £15m in 1999 and up to double that
the following year.

"This is an important part of re-establishing the company to make money in a low
oil price environment," Joe Darby, chief executive, said. "We are confident of
£20m [of savings] and think there is potential for £30m."

Oil currently trades at around $ 11 a barrel in London, $ 5 down on 12 months
ago, and the company expects the price next year to be about $ 13.

Mr Darby said the company, which employs 800 people worldwide, was looking at
further changes. Yesterday's moves would end some duplication at head office and
jobs lost necessarily be replaced in the business units.

The decentralised structure would be more flexible, Mr Darby said, and reflected
diversification away from the company's relatively high cost North Sea
production. The focus would be on areas where unit production costs were low and
"businesses can be made to perform even at low oil prices".

Analysts said Lasmo's move was likely to be followed by cost-reduction
announcements from other exploration and production companies.

The low oil price has already caused some to scale back exploration budgets for
next year and was a factor behind the merger of British Borneo and Hardy earlier
this year.

Lasmo shares rose about 5 per cent on the news, but closed closing 4p down at
140p. Lex, Page 22

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November 20, 1998, Friday LONDON EDITION 2

Bula legal case struck out
NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: COMPANIES & FINANCE: UK AND IRELAND; Pg. 30

LENGTH: 101 words

OIL EXPLORATION

Bula legal case struck out

Bula Resources, the oil exploration company with interests in Libya and Iraq,
has failed to provide a bankers' guarantee of £250,000 in favour of Gouldens
solicitors, which it is suing over the advice it received when it made an
investment in the Russian company Aki Otyr. This means that the proceedings
against Gouldens are automatically struck out. The high court yesterday refused
an application to extend the deadline. Bula is appealing against the decision,
but if its appeal fails it will be forced to pay Gouldens' legal costs. Thorold
Barker

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November 10, 1998, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 3

EU warns of retaliation if US imposes trade sanctions

BYLINE: By Neil Buckley in Brussels

SECTION: FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 371 words

DATELINE: Brussels

The European Union warned yesterday that threatened trade sanctions by the US
over the EU's banana import regime risked damaging transatlantic relations and
the multilateral trade system - and would be met with a robust response.

A spokesman for trade commissioner Sir Leon Brittan said the EU had "several
options" if sanctions were imposed, including action against the US through the
World Trade Organisation.

"If the US has a problem with [the banana regime] it should use the proper [WTO]
channels," the spokesman said. "It should not use the rules of the jungle."

Pierre Moscovici, France's European affairs minister, said the EU had already
responded to US complaints about the banana regime. He said France could "only
deplore" the US willingness to resort to unilateral action.

Sir Leon is expected to give what aides called a "trenchant defence" of the WTO
system during a press conference today.

That will come before the US is expected to publish a preliminary list of
European exports on which it proposes sanctions in an effort to force the EU to
make further changes to its banana import system.

There was speculation in Brussels that the US would propose sanctions on
high-profile products, such as Scotch whisky and French wine and cheese, to
exert maximum pressure on the EU. The US is expected to consult industry on its
preliminary sanctions list before announcing a shorter, definitive, list in
December.

Officials at the European Commission, the EU executive, insisted that the US
should instead stay within the WTO system and launch an appeal. "If they appeal,
we will co-operate fully," said one.

The US has already won a WTO case over the regime, which gives producers in
former African, Caribbean and Pacific colonies of France and the UK privileged
access to the EU market. But Washington said changes introduced by the EU last
month did not go far enough in improving access for bananas grown in Latin
America.

The escalating tensions over bananas are another blow to the transatlantic
trading relationship, already hit by a series of disputes in recent years,
including extraterritorial US legislation penalising companies doing business
with Cuba, Iran and Libya.

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October 28, 1998, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 2

Indian tea industry waits for Russia

BYLINE: By Kunal Bose in Calcutta

SECTION: COMMODITIES & AGRICULTURE; Pg. 36

LENGTH: 484 words

DATELINE: Calcutta

The tea industry is watching to see when Russia will start making normal
purchases of Indian and Sri Lankan teas. It stopped buying tea in August,
causing a fall of more than 10 per cent in the price of Sri Lankan and south
Indian tea.

"Tea is an essential beverage for Russians in winter," said P.K. Sen, chairman
of J. Thomas, the world's largest tea broking firm, "but the country's stocks of
tea are nearly exhausted."

The Russians have bought sporadically at the last few auctions in India and
Colombo, but the tea industry is encouraged by payments for earlier purchases
coming through and the Russian buyers who are opening letters of credit.

For the time being, the Russians are operating at the lower end of the Indian
tea market but "the Russian re-entry has boosted market sentiment", said Mr Sen.

Russia is the mainstay of the Indian and Sri Lankan tea export market. "Last
year Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States accounted for nearly 28
per cent of Sri Lankan tea exports of more than 255m kg. Of total Indian exports
of 203m kg in 1997, Russia accounted for 94m kg.

"Russia has an advantage in buying tea here since payments can be made in Indian
rupees, of which it has plentiful reserves," said Mr Sen.

In the eight months to August, Indian tea exports rose 14.05m kg to 131.38m kg.
However, officials said exports in 1998 would fall short of the 205m kg target
by at least 10m kg because of Russia's withdrawal from the tea auctions in
August.

"Over-dependence on a single market - Russia in the case of Indian tea - will
not do the industry any good in the long run," said Karan Paul, managing
director of AFT Industries, one of the country's largest tea groups.

"But India hopes to sell more tea to Iran, Libya and Iraq and to maintain its
exports to the UK, the world's biggest tea importer, and western European
countries at last year's level." .

As the Russians stayed away from the auctions, the price of tea grown in Assam
and West Bengal fell from Rs77.53 a kg in August to Rs72.35 in October and the
price of south Indian tea fell from Rs66.19 to Rs58 a kg.

"The average tea prices in 1998 will be marginally lower than last year," said
Mr Paul. "I expect a 10 per cent fall in prices next year. In the past the boom
in tea has lasted two years."

According to Mr Sen, the price falls, triggered by the absence of Russian
buying, "are confined to low grades of tea and the whole leaf orthodox variety.
The medium to good CTC [crush, tear and curl] teas are selling at better prices
than last year. This is because of a rapidly growing domestic market for good
teas."

Until the end of August, Indian tea production was up 39.1m kg to 520.4m kg.
There was some crop loss in September and October and an early winter will stop
plucking. However, India should finish the season with a crop of 835m kg against
811m kg last year.

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 22, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

A trap for tyrants:
David Buchan and Jimmy Burns describe the tightening
international net to catch the perpetrators of human rights
abuses:

SECTION: COMMENT & ANALYSIS; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 1135 words

DATELINE: in Britain's 1988 Criminal Justice Act. S

Britain's arrest of Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet, to answer
questions about killing and torture, shows that human rights are going global.
The arrest was made pending a request from Madrid to extradite him to stand
trial in Spain for human rights abuses against citizens of various nationalities
when he was in power.

The Pinochet case has severely strained Chile's relations with Spain and
Britain. The UK authorities have dismissed the Chilean government's claim that
Gen Pinochet enjoys diplomatic immunity. They say that the former general is not
an accredited diplomat in London, whatever his status at home. The case has also
re-opened deep wounds between left and right inside Chile. The country's
political parties had negotiated its 1990 transition to democracy by giving the
general effective immunity from prosecution as a life member of its senate.

Now human rights groups are in hot pursuit of the Chilean general. They seem to
be paying little attention to the wisdom or legality of outsiders upsetting
political accommodations reached in Chile: the arrest of Gen Pinochet has
enraged his supporters at home. Amnesty International and several other UK based
groups are calling for Gen Pinochet's prosecution under UK law, if the formal
Spanish extradition request never materialises, or is denied by Britain.

Even if Gen Pinochet somehow gets back to Chile, the case will have lasting
effects. "The message has gone out that in future these ex-criminals against
humanity are no longer free to roam the globe, and can be inconvenienced and
humiliated in a way they have never known up to now," says Nigel Rodley, a
British academic who doubles as the United Nations special rapporteur on
torture.

Richard Dicker, director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, says the
Anglo-Spanish moves against Gen Pinochet reflect growing recognition of "a
universal jurisdiction" for crimes against humanity.

A dictator from the opposite end of the political spectrum who might have to
take more care with his travel plans is Fidel Castro, the Communist president of
Cuba. He reacted to the British arrrest by saying that it amounted to "universal
meddling". However, he said he would be pleased if the man who in 1973 toppled
his fellow Marxist, Salvador Allende, were forced to stand trial.

The Pinochet case has produced an international response to the cross-border
operation to repress human rights in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s.
In his submission to the British police last week, Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish
investigating magistrate, refers to Spanish, Chilean, Argentine, American,
British and "other nationals" who were tortured or disappeared. Under an
agreement called Operation Condor, the Chilean and Argentine military took in
each other's political prisoners to make it easier for the prisoners to
"disappear" and harder for families and human rights groups to trace them.

Evidence about Operation Condor is largely drawn from the state prosecution of
the Argentine military juntas by the democratic government of President Raul
Alfonsin, as well as from the Chilean Rettig report. This was compiled by a
group of lawyers from across the political spectrum. It is now generally
accepted by all but the Chilean army as a true record of the abuses of human
rights during this period.

In Argentina, senior military commanders were given prison sentences, but
nothing similar happened in Chile - not through lack of evidence but because of
a political deal to pave the way for a return of democracy. However, since the
return of democratic rule in 1990, retired General Manuel Contreras, who headed
the Dina, the secret police, and his second in command were jailed for seven
years for their part in the extraterritorial murder of Orlando Letelier, a
socialist ex-minister, in Washington in 1976. Earlier this year Gen Contreras
told the Chilean Supreme Court that the Dina depended directly on Gen Pinochet,
to whom he reported daily.

Mr Garzon supports his case with reference to several statements of
international jurisprudence. These include the Nuremburg Tribunal statute of
1945, to which the UK was a signatory, and its subsequent endorsement by the UN
general assembly. It also cites the UN convention against genocide of 1948, the
resolution of the UN general assembly of 1973 on the prosecution of crimes
against humanity, the 1992 UN general assembly declaration on the "disappeared",
and the European convention on the prevention of torture.

As this list shows, good intentions abound in the field of human rights. What is
new, however, is the determination to punish abuse. This new determination stems
largely from a belated realisation of the horrors of the Bosnian and Rwandan
genocides of the early 1990s. This in turn produced the war crimes tribunals for
the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda, sitting in The Hague and in Arusha in Tanzania
respectively, and far more significantly, last July the creation by the United
Nations of a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). Some 120 countries
voted in favour of the ICC. The US, which claimed to be worried that its
soldiers on peacekeeping missions might be hauled before foreign judges, joined
half a dozen countries not noted for their respect of human rights, including
China, Iraq and Libya, in voting against. The ICC has yet to be ratified or to
start work. If it were in operation now, "it could have taken the political
pressure off Spain and Britain" in the Pinochet case, argues Mark Weller, a
British international lawyer at Cambridge.

So far, governments are on safer legal ground in taking up human rights cases
that affect their own citizens. But the concept of "universal jurisdiction" is
gaining ground. It has been used once in the US, says Mr Weller, in a 1980 case
involving the prosecution of a Paraguayan torturer. While on holiday in the US
he was spotted by a relative of one of his victims. It exists - but has not yet
been used - in Britain's 1988 Criminal Justice Act. Section 134 of this act
allows trial of torture cases in UK courts, regardless of the nationality of the
perpetuator or victim, or the location of the crime. Amnesty lawyers plan to use
this as a fall-back if the Spanish action fails.

In fact, argues Mr Dicker, there is "universal jurisdiction in any crime that is
egregiously offensive to humanity", such as war crimes or systematic and
widespread torture. This was the case in the days of piracy and slave-trading,
he says, and is becoming effective again. By the same argument, although
countries such as Chile and South Africa (through its recent Truth and
Reconciliation Committee) may grant amnesty or immunity to their citizens, it is
up to the world community to decide whether or not to respect such protection.

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Financial Times (London,England)

October 21, 1998, Wednesday SURVEY EDITION 2

Unification a slow process:
THE CROATS by Kevin Done:
Removing the parallel structures of a separate Bosnian Croat
state will be tough

SECTION: SURVEY - BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 610 words

At the headquarters building of Hrvatska Banka, the leading bank in Mostar in
the largely ethnic Croat area of southern Bosnia-Hercegovina, prints depicting a
series of new banknotes adorn the walls.

The notes show different denominations of the kuna, the currency of the
neighbouring state of Croatia. The latest annual report of Hrvatska Banka is
also prepared in kunas.

Buy a drink in a restaurant in west Mostar on the right bank of the river
Neretva, which carves a deep gorge between the war-shattered buildings of the
Ottoman era old town, and the bill will be given in kunas, even though the legal
tender of Bosnia-Hercegovina is the KM, the convertible mark.

Mobile phones used in the region log on to the network of Cronet, part of HPT,
the Croatian posts and telecommunications utility; send a letter and it is still
likely to bear a stamp of Herceg-Bosna, the Bosnian Croat statelet created
during the war years and which was supposed to be dismantled in the wake of the
Dayton peace accord reached three years ago.

Television broadcasts in the region are dominated by transmissions from HRT,
Croatian state television from Zagreb, and most ethnic Croats vote for the HDZ,
the Bosnian arm of Croatian president Franjo Tudjman's ruling party.

The struggle to remove the parallel structures of a separate Bosnian Croat state
is fundamental to the effort of the international community to fashion a unified
Moslem-Croat federation as one entity in war-torn Bosnia, but it is a slow
process.

Edhem Bicakcic, Federation prime minister, highlights the problems in creating a
unified customs service, where it is only recently that progress has been made
in getting Bosnian Croats and Moslems to work together at border points.

"The biggest part of these border points did not have any Bosniak [Moslem]
customs officers, and the Croats did not accept the border as a border," he
says. They are taught in school that Franjo Tudjman is their president and that
their country is Croatia."

In theory the Federation entity, if not the whole country including Republika
Srpska, should now operate as a single market, but in practice strong internal
barriers to trade persist.

Ferid Pasovic, general manager of Sarajevska Pivara, one of the largest
breweries in former Yugoslavia, says that the beer market in Bosnia-Hercegovina
is still defined along ethnic lines.

"We sell in east Mostar [largely Moslem], but it is easier to sell our beer in
Libya than in west Mostar [largely Croat]."

Tensions are still running high in many parts of the country at the efforts of
the international community to return refugees, but some of the worst violence
has occurred this year in Croat-dominated areas.

Roadblocks have been used to stop displaced families returning. Earlier this
month rocket-propelled grenades were fired at night at a Moslem house, near
Stolac, causing extensive damage. More than 60 homes in the area have been badly
damaged or destroyed since the spring.

In the most serious incident at the beginning of October, a group of around 25
displaced Moslems trying to return to their empty, abandoned homes in Tasovcici,
south of Mostar, were attacked by a hostile crowd. There were five explosions, a
grenade killed one Moslem returnee and injured three others as well as injuring
two Bosnian Croat policemen. Two of the houses were set on fire.

Three years after Dayton it remains a daunting task to repopulate the desolate
abandoned minority villages that dot the countryside and to rebuild the
shattered buildings that mark out the frontline of the ethnic conflict that tore
at the historic heart of Mostar.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 30, 1998, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Libya demands guarantees
NEWS DIGEST

SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 149 words

DATELINE: United Nations

LOCKERBIE SUSPECTS

Libya demands guarantees

Libya yesterday said it would refuse to hand over the two suspects in the
bombing of a Pan Am aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, unless it received
guarantees they would not be extradited to the US or Britain.

Abuzed Omar Dorda, Libyan representative to the UN, told the General Assembly
that Libya needed to resolve several questions before it could reach agreement,
including details of all witnesses. He also said the UN Security Council should
endorse an agreement between the Netherlands and Libya "specifying how the two
suspects will be transferred to the Netherlands."

The US and the UK have insisted that if convicted by a Scottish court in the
Netherlands the suspects should serve their sentences in Scotland. A total of
270 people were killed when the airliner was blown up in December, 1988. Laura
Silber, United Nations

LOAD-DATE: September 30, 1998

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 29, 1998, Tuesday SURVEY EDITION 1

POLITICS
The rapid toppling of a Blairite miniature

BYLINE: by James Blitz

SECTION: SURVEY - MALTA; Pg. 03

LENGTH: 1230 words

* by James Blitz

The rapid toppling of a Blairite miniature

After two years in power, Alfred Sant has had to hand back the reins to his
predecessor

Alfred Sant, the leader of Malta's Labour party, has just suffered the fate that
some once feared might befall Britain's Tony Blair - a rebellion by his party's
left wing to topple him from power.

For the last six years, Mr Sant, a clever, determined but somewhat introverted
politician, has been taking Malta's Labour party on an epic voyage away from its
left wing socialist roots in a manner that smacks of the Blairite project in the
UK.

For decades before he came to office, the party had been under the control of
the socialist Dom Mintoff, who led successive Labour governments into close
relationships with countries like Colonel Gadaffi's Libya and Kim Il Sung's
North Korea. Mr Sant, a Harvard graduate with a very good business brain,
decided to carry out a volte face, turning the party into a Maltese New Labour.

Winning power in the autumn of 1996, he carried out a series of fiscally sound
reforms of which any free market liberal would be proud. In less than two years,
he slashed his country's budget deficit from 10 per cent to an expected 5 per
cent this year, maintaining a tight grip on spending and trying to raise tax
revenues.

It was all looking good. But then, as prime minister, Mr Sant soon found he
possessed one serious weakness that Mr Blair does not have - the size of his
majority. Mr Blair was elected in May 1997 with a majority of 178. Mr Sant came
to office with a majority of one.

Thus, a revolt earlier this year by the left wing of the Maltese Labour party -
led by the 82-year-old Mr Mintoff - left Mr Sant powerless to resist. Mr Mintoff
made clear his hatred of Mr Sant's move to the right and his calls for fiscal
restraint. The revolt forced Mr Sant to go to the polls again earlier this
month, losing power to the Nationalists led by Eddie Fenech-Adami.

In the days since that defeat, Labour supporters have expressed mixed views of
Mr Sant and his actions in government.

Many believe the broad strategy of seeking to curtail the public finances was
correct, given the huge rise in Malta's public debt over the past 10 years.
"There was a huge problem. Sant had been clear about that during the election
campaign and he started to carry out his policies unwaveringly," says Vincent
Farrugia, director of Malta's General Retailers and Traders Unions.

But the tactics which he used to bring down the budget deficit - introducing a
range of highly unpopular levies on the use of water and electricity - was, in
the view of many Labour supporters, too brusque and certain to lead to
disaffection within his party, the unions and the public. "Sant is too clever
for Malta and too naive for politics," says one senior Labour supporter who
knows the former prime minister well.

Others take a different view. They argue that Mr Sant fell foul of what they
regard as gerrymandering of Malta's election system by Malta's Nationalist
government when it was last in office between 1987 and 1996.

They note that Mr Sant was elected by a majority of 7,800 Maltese voters in 1996
but had a majority of one seat in the 69-member parliament. Mr Fenech-Adami,
however, has just got back into office with a 12,300 majority - double that of
Mr Sant - but with a majority of five parliamentary seats. "Such a result could
only come about by constructing the system of electoral districts in a way that
supports the Nationalists," says one Labour supporter.

Mr Fenech-Adami vigorously rejects the gerrymandering charge. In an interview
shortly after his election this month, he insisted that the new electoral
boundaries had been drawn up by an independent commision backed by both himself
and Mr Sant.

But whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, squabbling over the issue
between government and opposition is an unfortuante backdrop for the political
season ahead.

What opens up now is a period in which Mr Fenech-Adami will face a tough
political choice.

On the one hand, he has made a striking series of pledges in the run-up to the
election that are certain to put upward pressure on spending if he keeps them.
He has pledged to renew a stipend for university students, worth around $ 150 a
month. He has pledged to "roll back" the commitment made by Mr Sant to increase
charges for water and electricity consumption, both of which industries are
subsidised by the Maltese state. People will be looking to him to meet those
commitments.

On the other hand, Mr Fenech-Adami is all too aware of the concern within
international financial bodies at the state of Malta's public finances. With the
public debt in danger of breaching 60 per cent of GNP, an intense clampdown on
the public finances may well be needed if debt servicing is not to spiral out of
control.

Which way will Mr Fenech-Adami go? It is too soon for the outside world to know.
And it may be that Mr Fenech-Adami does not yet know himself.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 26, 1998, Saturday W EDITION 1

Chess

SECTION: CHESS; Pg. 02

LENGTH: 302 words

The controversial 33rd chess Olympiad opens today in Elista, capital of
Kalmykia, an obscure republic near the Caspian Sea. It's the latest project of
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Kalmykia's ruler and president of the International Chess
Federation (Fide), who is bankrolling a £1.6m knock-out world championship in
Las Vegas.

Anti-Ilyumzhinov stories have abounded since June when the editor of the
opposition newspaper was found murdered. There are rumours that the
state-of-the-art playing hall will not be ready and a so-called "Chess City" to
house nearly 2,000 players is incomplete.

This month Russia's central bank suspended subsidies and operations in Kalmykia
because taxes had not been paid; Ilyumzhinov preferred to spend the money on
wage arrears (presumably to Chess City's builders). Last week Kalmykia got the
decision overturned in the courts, and Fide confirmed the Olympiad goes ahead.

Human rights activists are disappointed that few players have withdrawn; but
Olympiad veterans, inured to dodgy conditions and unexpected events, say other
sports face similar problems.

World war broke out during the Buenos Aires Olympiad 1939, civil war during
Erevan 1996. The eastern bloc boycotted Tel Aviv 1976, when Libya staged a rival
event. An Argentine official decamped with the Olympiad funds in 1954. Buenos
Aires 1978 was sponsored by a harsh military junta, and the hall was close to a
firing range and an airport. Several masters who ventured outside the hotel were
mugged at Moscow 1994; and at Varna 1962 I was the only England player to bring
a bath plug. Back at the board, the battle for medals should be between Russia,
the United States, and England. No 1250

White mates in three moves, against any defence (by W. A. Shinkman). Solution,
Back Page

Leonard Barden

LOAD-DATE: September 26, 1998

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September 25, 1998, Friday LONDON EDITION 3

US calls for arms sales halt in Africa war zones
UN SECURITY COUNCIL:

BYLINE: By Michael Littlejohns at the United Nations in New York

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 525 words

DATELINE: New York

The US yesterday called for a voluntary moratorium on arms sales to Africa's
"zones of conflict" and the creation of an international centre to collect and
share data on weapons transfers.

Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state, denounced a "dirty business" that
fuelled conflicts. "All of us whose nations sell such weapons, or through whose
nations the traffic flows, bear some responsibility for turning a blind eye to
the destruction they cause," she said.

Mrs Albright joined foreign ministers of other member states at a special
Security Council meeting convened to review developments in the crisis-ridden
continent in a follow-up to a similar session a year ago.

While Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, pointed to some positive developments in
Africa's transition from dictatorship to democracy - notably Nigeria - he
mentioned that in the past six months new fighting had erupted in or between
several countries, and humanitarian crises in Somalia and Sudan seemed only to
grow "with every passing day". Regrettably, he said, a move away from the rule
of the gun was the exception in recent months.

"What will it take for Africa's leaders finally to reject military solutions to
political challenges?" he asked. Invoking Nelson Mandela, South Africa's
president, who appealed in the UN General Assembly on Monday for a new cadre of
leaders, Mr Annan said South Africa's achievements should be "a source of
inspiration to us all".

The secretary general avoided mention of the UN's own shortcomings in Africa,
but Philip Gourevitch, author of a book on genocide in Rwanda that the UN did
little or nothing to prevent, said last night the world body was "fundamentally
marginal to the course of African events". It seemed capable of doing little
more than expressing regret: "It's credibility is very low and it has proven
slow and ineffective," he added.

A draft statement, expected to be adopted when the debate wound up last night,
pledged that the council, "recognising that the challenge of achieving peace and
security in Africa is a continuous process", would continue to assess progress
at bi-annual sessions at foreign ministerial level.

In his statement yesterday, Robin Cook, UK foreign secretary, promised British
support for efforts to stamp out illicit weapons sales to Africa and control the
trade in small arms.

"On their side, the countries of Africa could do more to promote restraint and
transparency in weapons levels," he said, voicing disappointment that only eight
African states so far had reported for the UN Register of Conventional Arms.

Salim Ahmed, secretary general of the Organisation of African Unity, took the
opportunity to welcome the agreement by Britain and the US to have the alleged
Lockerbie bombers tried in the Netherlands under Scottish law - the aircraft was
blown up over Scotland in 1988. But Libya's concerns about the proposed trial
still needed to be addressed, he said.

Responding, Mrs Albright insisted the proposed terms were fair and there was
nothing more to negotiate. "Libya should accept its own proposal and deliver the
fugitives for trial," she said.

LOAD-DATE: September 25, 1998

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 23, 1998, Wednesday SURVEY EDITION 1

Middle East turns down the heat:
GETTING PAID:
Kevin Godier and Jon Marks find that Arab markets are displaying
a welcome payments stability amid the financial storms

SECTION: SURVEY - FINANCIAL TIMES EXPORTER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 817 words

As financial storms threaten to submerge some of the 1990s' most fashionable
markets, the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region appears as an oasis of
calm. Low oil prices are causing concern, with fears of renewed payments
problems in such leading markets as Saudi Arabia, but market soundings suggest
exporters and their bankers are increasingly comfortable with trade payments
risk in what was perceived as a high political risk market, most often requiring
payment protection such as letters of credit (l/c) confirmed by an overseas
bank, or even pre-delivery payments.

A payments survey of UK exporters, carried out this summer by Peter Southgate &
Associates on behalf of Barclays Bank, showed that half of the 500 British
companies selling into the Mena region were using open account settlement, up
from 47 per cent in 1997; meanwhile the use of l/c security fell to 37 per cent
from 41 per cent last year.

According to a senior Belgian bank executive, this trend has been reflected in
"a dramatic fall in pricing [for l/c confirmation] in almost all countries in
the Middle East".

In popular markets such as Morocco, companies can avail themselves of margins
"so thin that banks are making hardly anything", another regional financing
specialist said.

Exporters are now able to take advantage of strong competition among financiers
in the short-term trade finance market. Bankers report that even banks in Yemen,
traditionally a by-word for political risk, are now considered as reasonable l/c
risks.

The unlikely quartet of Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Syria are seen as highly
competitive markets, and "Swiss banks are competing very intensely to take risk
on trade paper in Middle Eastern markets that were once seen as much bigger
risks," a senior executive in a London bank specialising in North African and
Levantine risk says.

Equipment buyers in Algeria's burgeoning hydrocarbons industry sometimes seek
l/c-based payment deferments as long as 18 months, although in most cases
business is done on a sight or 30-day basis, bankers said. One reports that
"more and more trading partners are keen to deal on a documents for collection
basis in Algeria."

Many Egyptian trading relationships are sufficiently established to place
payments on an open account basis.

Syria is a previously isolated market in the process of rehabilitating itself
through bilateral debt deals and the promise of big ticket infrastructure
projects; most trade deals are secured through sight to 30-day payments using
Commercial Bank of Syria l/cs.

Competition for trade business is stiff even in sanctions-affected economies
such as Libya, where companies selling foodstuffs and project-related equipment
permitted by sanctions regimes rely on sight l/cs which are secured through
oil-related escrow accounts.

Other financing techniques may also be applied. Medium-term financing may be
provided by forfaiters, specialist trade financiers who buy exporters'
receivables at a discount, taking on the risk and providing the exporter with
cashflow.

"It is not impossible to go out to five years for Iran," says Denis Keenlyside,
head of forfaiting at Nedcor Bank.

Reflecting improving political relations with Europe and (for now at least) an
improved payments profile, state export credit agencies are also again backing
Iranian deals. Insurance capacity worth at least £100m has been introduced by
the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department after a four-year absence, running
parallel to facilities provided by other major insurers including France's
Coface, Italy's SACE and Germany's Hermes.

Petrodollars provide a platform for open account dealing for sales to Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar and the UAE. But even in such low-risk markets, the extra security
against insolvency provided by export insurance may be advisable.

This was underlined by the troubles that were experienced by Saudi Arabia in the
mid-1990s, when a budget-related cash squeeze left overseas contractors dealing
with Saudi public sector purchasers (and their local suppliers) floundering for
payments.

With oil prices again depressed - leaving the world's largest oil exporter
facing an official $ 12bn shortfall in revenues - financiers and insurers are
speculating privately that some Saudi buyers could again experience payments
problems.

"Public sector payment delays are coming back," says one banker. An analyst with
a European credit insurer notes that "the oil price is a definite issue for
Saudi Arabia, looking at previous patterns."

Many exporters are already attuned to these risks. For all the Mena region's
feelgood factor, another recent survey, commissioned by NCM Credit Insurance and
the Institute of Export, found that payment in advance - the most secure form of
remuneration - was required of Middle Eastern buyers by 23 per cent of
exporters, compared to 9 per cent in 1997.

LOAD-DATE: September 23, 1998

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 12, 1998, Saturday LONDON EDITION 1

Companies seek end to Libya curbs

BYLINE: By Roula Khalaf in Beirut and Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 563 words

DATELINE: Cairo

Corporate pressure to end United Nations sanctions against Libya is expected to
mount following Libya's announcement of plans for $ 10bn (£6bn) of oil, gas and
transport projects requiring foreign technology and investment.

Libya has already promised Italian companies preferential treatment after the
signing in July of a bilateral accord by which the two countries ended the rift
caused by Italy's colonial rule and agreed to seek an end to Libya's
international isolation. Companies elsewhere are also expected to increase
pressure for an end to the sanctions.

The UN Security Council last month endorsed a resolution which would suspend UN
sanctions on Libya if the government handed over two suspects accused of
involvement in the bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988,
which left 270 people dead.

The UK and US governments have met a Libyan demand for a trial to be held in a
third country. The two suspects, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah and Abdul Baset Ali
al-Megrahi, both officials in the Libyan security service, are to be tried in
the Netherlands by Scottish judges and under Scottish law. Libya is now
requesting negotiations on the conduct of the trial and guarantees on the rights
of the suspects.

According to sources close to the Libyan government, a targeted $ 4.5bn of deals
in the oil and gas sector, to be completed within five years, includes updating
three oil refineries, building a new one, developing the Al Farah oilfield and
inviting foreign companies for new gas explorations.

Libya is attaching particular importance to rebuilding its civil aviation
infrastructure and updating aircraft of its national carrier, Libyan Arab
Airlines, whose fleet is dominated by Soviet-era Russian models. The airline is
aiming to buy up to $ 2.5bn of new aircraft, as well as upgrade two maintenance
centres, training facilities and existing airports. Libya wants much of this
work to be completed in time to resume work upon the lifting of sanctions.

British Aerospace has said it had held preliminary talks with Libya on
reconstruction of civil aviation but only after the lifting of UN sanctions,
which ban exports of arms, aviation equipment and services to Libya.

Libya is also said to be allocating $ 4bn for railway projects extending from
its western border with Tunisia to the border with Egypt in the east. Projects
include the laying of 3,000km of track and the construction of 96 new stations.

Foreign pressure to end sanctions has been dominated by European reliance on
imports of 1m barrels per day of Libyan oil, which provides 95 per cent of
Libyan export earnings, as well as the prospect of post-sanctions rehabilitation
and development contracts. Up to 31 per cent of Italy's oil consumption is
accounted for by Libyan supplies of around 490,000 b/d. Germany, the second
biggest Libyan oil importer, consumes 258,600 b/d, while Spanish and Greek
consumption has also been rising.

Eni, the Italian energy group, is advancing plans with the Libyan National Oil
Company to build a $ 3.8bn gas pipeline linking western Libya and Sicily. Italy
negotiated exemption of the project from UN sanctions. Thirteen oil and gas
exploration projects are now in place, with British, Spanish, French and
Norwegian companies. Italy expects to be importing 8bn cubic metres of Libyan
gas a year early in the next century.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 10, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

WTO drawn into row over anti-Burma law

BYLINE: By Neil Buckley in Brussels

SECTION: WORLD TRADE; Pg. 06

LENGTH: 426 words

DATELINE: Brussels

The European Union and Japan will this month call for a World Trade Organisation
disputes panel over a controversial Massachusetts state law barring procurement
from companies trading with Burma.

The call for a WTO panel is expected to be made on September 22, and follows
three sets of inconclusive talks with the US.

It comes as the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), representing 580
companies, including many of the biggest US multinationals, seeks to overturn
the 1996 Massachusetts law at a federal court in Boston. The law effectively
bars companies doing business with Burma from bidding for public contracts in
Massachusetts, worth $ 2bn a year.

Papers filed in the federal court this summer by the NFTC suggested 346
companies were affected, and Apple, the computer group, has cited the law as one
reason for withdrawing from Burma. The NFTC argues that the law violates the US
constitution, which says making foreign policy and regulating foreign trade are
federal rights.

The European Commission, the EU's Brussels-based executive arm, first complained
to the WTO about the law in June 1997, with Japan joining a month later.

They argue that the law breaches the WTO's government procurement agreement,
which is designed to prevent procurement decisions being based on political
factors.

"The US had promised there would be amendments, but these simply haven't
happened," said one Brussels official yesterday.

The call for a panel also reflects growing concern in Europe over the increasing
tendency of the US to impose sanctions, often with extra- territorial effects.

The EU and US narrowly avoided a damaging clash this year over the Helms-Burton
anti-Cuba law and the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.

Massachusetts insists the law is not unconstitutional, and has called the NFTC
action an attack on state sovereignty by wealthy companies motivated by greed.
It points to the success of sanctions in forcing political change in countries
such as South Africa.

* The UK has called on its EU partners to take further steps to support Burma's
opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, including fresh discouragement on trade,
investment and tourism and new visa restrictions for Burmese citizens, adds
Peter Montagnon, Asia Editor, in London.

Derek Fatchett, UK Foreign Office minister, condemned the latest detentions of
opposition figures. He said he had raised with other EU countries the
possibility of a top-level mission to see Ms Suu Kyi and other opposition
figures and to establish dialogue with the regime.

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Financial Times (London,England)

September 2, 1998, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Khartoum to probe ownership of factory targeted by US

BYLINE: By Mark Huband in Cairo

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 06

LENGTH: 354 words

DATELINE: Cairo

Sudan's government is to investigate the ownership of a pharmaceutical factory
in the capital which was destroyed in a US missile attack on August 20 amid US
allegations that chemical weapons were being manufactured on the site.

Sudan has denied US government claims that the al-Shifa factory is linked to
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian dissident whose headquarters in Afghanistan
was attacked at the same time as the Khartoum strike. Mr bin Laden, who has
launched a violent campaign to force a US military withdrawal from Saudi Arabia,
lived in Khartoum until the government asked him to leave in 1996.

Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan's president, said yesterday he had formed a
committee to establish the identity of the factory's owner. According to the
Sudanese newspaper Al-Jumhouria, the committee will be headed by a senior judge
with the aim of investigating "the ownership of al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory,
how it was set up and financed and how its ownership passed to the current
owners".

The inquiry comes a week after President al-Bashir stated at a press conference
that "Osama bin Laden has no shares in this factory". Sudanese officials have
made it clear who they believe the owner to be, but remain keen to exploit the
apparent paucity of US evidence to justify the attack by adopting a transparent
approach towards the issue.

The government's inquiry follows what amounts to a refusal by the United Nations
to send a fact-finding mission to Sudan to establish the truth about the
factory's role. The US has been widely criticised for offering unconvincing
evidence that the factory produced precursors for VX nerve gas. Soil samples the
US says were taken from the site before the attack are of uncertain quality as
proof, independent scientists have concluded.

Determined to further dent US credibility, a Sudanese delegation yesterday
defied UN sanctions on Libya when it flew on a Sudan Airways flight direct to
Tripoli at the invitation of Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader.

The flight took place as Taha Yassin Ramadan, Iraq's vice president, visited the
bombed factory.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 28, 1998, Friday LONDON EDITION 1

Gaddafi has 'no objection' to trial

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 37 words

Gaddafi has 'no objection' to trial

Libya's Colonel Gaddafi said his country had "no objection" to the plan for the
two Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing to be tried under Scottish law in
the Netherlands.

LOAD-DATE: August 28, 1998

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 28, 1998, Friday LONDON EDITION 2

Gadaffi warily backs trial plan

BYLINE: By Stephen Fidler and Mark Suzman in Washington

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 275 words

DATELINE: Washington

Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, yesterday responded favourably to a joint
US-British proposal that two Libyans accused of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm
jumbo jet should be tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands.

But he indicated some reservations about legal procedures that left it unclear
whether he would agree, in fact, to allow the two men to stand trial.

The US and UK unveiled the proposal early this week for the trial to be held
under three Scottish judges in the Netherlands, stating the proposal was not
negotiable.

Interviewed on CNN television, Mr Gadaffi said Libya accepted the agreement
without conditions provided there were no "hidden tricks" by the US and UK
governments. "I am not sure America and the UK have good intentions to solve
this problem," he said.

Mr Gadaffi called for more information about what might happen to the suspects
if they were found guilty and whether they would be permitted an appeal.

Under Scottish law - used because the aircraft fell to earth in Lockerbie,
Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground - defendants are
questioned by prosecutors before the trial. Mr Gadaffi indicated he believed the
Netherlands was a suitable venue, and that Scottish judges were acceptable.

Speaking from a wheelchair, which he said was due to a sports injury, Mr Gadaffi
refused to speculate about the suspects' guilt or innocence.

However, he made it clear he expected the UN Security Council to adopt a
resolution "very soon" and that remaining international sanctions against Libya
would be lifted. "Sanctions must be lifted immediately after this agreement."

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 28, 1998, Friday USA EDITION 1

UK puts pressure on Libya

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 36 words

UK puts pressure on Libya

British foreign secretary Robin Cook said Libya's response to the joint US and
British proposal for a trial of two Lockerbie bomb suspects at a neutral venue
did not go far enough.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 27, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Democratic S Africa finds its neighbours hard to convince:
Lack of enthusiasm for Congo peace plan shows up Pretoria's
problems as regional superpower, writes Victor Mallet:

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 901 words

South Africa's four-year-old democracy is fast discovering that the role of
regional superpower in Africa is as frustrating and unrewarding as the job of
global superpower is for the US. If the government of President Nelson Mandela
takes decisive military or diplomatic action, it risks accusations from its
neighbours of bullying and interference; if it does not, it is criticised as
callous and ineffective.

That is one reason why South Africa is having such difficulty persuading other
African countries to adopt a peace plan for Democratic Republic of Congo that is
regarded as eminently sensible by most foreign powers. It comprises a ceasefire
and negotiations between Congolese parties leading to elections.

"South Africa is doing what we expect of a country that is a full democracy,"
says Greg Mills, national director of the South African Institute of
International Affairs. "We're doing the right thing. We've managed to hammer out
some sort of basis for a settlement."

Unfortunately neither Eduardo dos Santos nor Robert Mugabe, the Angolan and
Zimbabwean leaders who have defied Mr Mandela and sent their armed forces into
Congo to support the beleaguered government of Laurent Kabila against a rebel
onslaught, preside over "full democracies"; neither has consulted his own people
on the wisdom of a foreign war.

But that is not the only reason for the region's lack of enthusiasm for the
South African peace plan. Like Japan in post-war Asia and Germany in Europe,
South Africa is often regarded with intense suspicion by its poorer and weaker
neighbours.

South Africa's economy is 20 times the size of the next biggest in the 14-nation
Southern African Development Community, and three times as large as all the
other members put together. Not all African leaders have been happy to see South
African banks, brewers, mining companies and supermarket chains pouring
investment into their countries after the end of apartheid and the lifting of
economic sanctions against Pretoria.

Nor have they forgotten the military might the former regime wielded in southern
Africa, occupying Namibia, supporting anti-communist rebels in Angola and
Mozambique, and frequently launching raids and air strikes into neighbouring
countries in pursuit of African National Congress guerrillas.

As a director of one of the big South African conglomerates with interests in
southern Africa put it this week: "All the countries are very worried that South
Africa will just take an exceedingly dominant role. I don't think that feeling
is going to disappear."

South African foreign policy is undermined by other problems as well. President
Mugabe, who is leading a rival faction within SADC in opposition to South
Africa's attempts at peacemaking, gets on particularly badly with Mr Mandela -
probably because he resents having been eclipsed as the region's leader since
apartheid ended and Mr Mandela came to power in 1994.

Another weakness is the ineffectiveness of the South African foreign ministry
under Alfred Nzo, the 73-year-old minister. "He's not dynamic enough to really
push things through," says one foreign diplomat. The charming but imperious Mr
Mandela often creates policy on the spot in his discussions with other world
leaders, leaving the foreign ministry stumbling behind with no idea what is
happening.

Lastly, there is no consensus within the ANC about the direction the country's
foreign policy should take.

On the one hand, as a free-market democracy, South Africa frequently adopts
positions in tune with those of the western powers. The US and Europe therefore
see South Africa as a friendly nation that can represent their interests in
Africa, while left-leaning African governments - including those of Zimbabwe and
Congo - mock South Africa as an agent of the US.

On the other hand, Mr Mandela and the ANC remain loyal to countries that
supported them during the fight against apartheid - including enemies of the US
such as Cuba and Libya - while the ANC's communist and trade union allies are
still wedded to old-fashioned socialism.

The result is a muddle, with South Africa's international policies wobbling
between pro-western positions and traditional third-world leftism. (It hosts the
Non-Aligned Movement summit in Durban next week.)

To make matters worse, South Africa's dream of an "African Renaissance" -a
flowering of democracy, culture and economic growth across the continent - is in
tatters following the outbreak of wars in eastern, western and central Africa.
Only a rapprochement with Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar, the Nigerian military ruler
who has promised to return his country to democracy, holds out a glimmer of
hope.

Pretoria, aware of the sensitivities of its neighbours, has deliberately adopted
a low-key style of diplomacy in Africa. "In the region, it's been an 'after you'
approach, a softly-softly approach," says Mr Mills. Such tactics cut little ice
with the growing number of belligerents involved in the Congo war, but it is
hard to see how a more robust diplomatic drive would do anything other than
antagonise South Africa's rivals still more.

Only a disaster for one or more of the foreign armies embroiled in Congo is
likely to persuade other African governments that South Africa - still
struggling to bring the parties to the negotiating table - is not such a
malevolent regional superpower after all.

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August 27, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 1

Libya asks for more time
NEWS DIGEST:

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 155 words

DATELINE: New York

LOCKERBIE TRIAL

Libya asks for more time

Libya has asked the United Nations Security Council to delay a decision on the
Lockerbie case until it can study American and British documents on handing over
two suspects to the Netherlands for trial in the 1988 bombing of an airliner.

In a letter to the Security Council received late on Tuesday night, Ramadan
Barg, Libyan charge d'affaires, said he was surprised to learn of a draft
resolution, proposed by the US and Britain. He said Libya was anxious to resolve
the dispute and needed "sufficient time" to study the documents detailing the
offer to hold the trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law by Scottish
judges.

After a Council session yesterday, Stephen Gomersall, Britain's deputy
representative to the UN, expressed hope for the "acceptance of the proposal by
the government of Libya and the eventual resolution of the dispute". Laura
Silber, New York

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 27, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 2

Libya 'positive' on trial proposal

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 37 words

Libya 'positive' on trial proposal

Libya said it would "deal positively" with the US and British proposal for a
trial in the Netherlands of the two men accused of the PanAm airliner bombing
over Lockerbie. Page 4

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August 27, 1998, Thursday LONDON EDITION 2

Libya pledges 'positive' move on Lockerbie

BYLINE: By Laura Silber at the UN in New York and Andrew Parker in London

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 04

LENGTH: 324 words

DATELINE: London

Libya said last night it would "deal positively" with the US and British
proposal for a trial in the Netherlands of the two men accused of the PanAm
airliner bombing over Lockerbie.

Robin Cook, UK foreign secretary, welcomed the Libyans' statement but said he
would be examining it "to ensure that they are not setting any conditions on
their acceptance".

Washington and London, which earlier had insisted the two Libyan suspects be
tried in the US or Scotland, proposed earlier this month that they could be
tried in the Netherlands under Scottish law by Scottish judges.

Libya, which had been arguing for a trial in a third country, said in a foreign
ministry statement that it "wishes to confirm that it will deal positively with
this step and will give it the attention it deserves".

It went on: "While. . . [it] announces its acceptance of the development in the
positions of the governments of the US and the UK, which we have called for, it
stresses the necessity to lift the sanctions."

Sanctions, including travel curbs, were imposed on Libya in 1992 to put pressure
on it to hand over the bombing suspects. A total of 270 people were killed in
the air and on the ground when the PanAm airliner was blown up over Lockerbie on
December 21, 1988.

The Libyan announcement came after Col Muammer Gadaffi, the country's leader,
met senior aides to discuss the US and UK proposal. It followed a Libyan request
to the United Nations Security Council to delay any decision on Lockerbie until
it studied US and UK papers.

The Security Council will meet today to discuss a draft resolution put forward
by the US and the UK to suspend sanctions once Libya hands over the two suspects
to the Netherlands for trial. The resolution would threaten new sanctions if
Libya does not comply with the offer.

Mr Cook's statement said the UK would expect a "formal response" from Libya
through the UN secretary general's office.

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August 26, 1998, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1

Libya to respond on Lockerbie trial

SECTION: SHORTS; Pg. 01

LENGTH: 30 words

Libya to respond on Lockerbie trial

Tripoli was expected to respond today to an Anglo-US proposal that two Libyans
accused of the Lockerbie bombing be tried in The Hague.

LOAD-DATE: August 26, 1998

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 25, 1998, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Europe comes into range:
PERSONAL VIEW WILLIAM SCHNEIDER:
The west must recognise the threat posed by the rapid
proliferation of ballistic missiles:

SECTION: PERSONAL VIEW; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 868 words

The threat posed by ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction is
broader, and evolving more rapidly, than has been reported. Moreover, there may
be little or no warning of the emergence of a missile threat to Europe and North
America.

These conclusions have emerged from a study of intelligence information
undertaken at the request of the US Congress. The study, perhaps the most
comprehensive recent review of worldwide missile developments, reveals the rapid
change in the international security environment since the end of the cold war.
The technologies of proliferation are more accessible while the inhibitions to
acquiring them are rapidly receding.

This deterioration in the post-cold war security environment is the result of
four related developments:

* Technological and manufacturing know-how for weapons of mass destruction has
become widely dispersed. An environmental activist group publishes detailed
information on nuclear weapon design and manufacturing on its internet website.
Chemical and biological weapon information is equally accessible. The absence of
clear technical distinctions between ballistic missiles and space-launch
vehicles has helped undermine international efforts to contain the spread of
knowledge. So has the abandonment of cold war-era export controls over
"dual-use" technology.

* China, Russia and other nations have transferred enabling technologies for
weapons of mass destruction to several countries. The decision to do so appears
to be based on their strategic and economic interests, rather than on
non-proliferation, to which they nominally subscribe. Russia's transfer of
nuclear and missile-related technologies to China is facilitating rapidly
accelerating strategic modernisation, and has enhanced China's role as a
proliferator. Russia's help to Iran's long-range missile programmes has been
crucial to its success. Russia helped Iran "reverse engineer" North Korean's No
Dong missile, making possible Iran's successful launch in July of the renamed
missile, the Shahab 3. China's aid to Pakistan's nuclear programme, its transfer
of a turnkey medium-range missile system (the CSS-2) to Saudi Arabia, and the
transfer of a complete mobile ballistic missile manufacturing system to Pakistan
illustrate the point.

* Proliferation has reached the stage where it is self-sustaining among
second-tier recipients. A sinister commerce has developed between North Korea,
Pakistan, Iran, and others in proliferation-related technologies and hardware.
The extensive and costly manufacturing infrastructure that these nations have
put in place may allow further proliferation in countries such as Libya and
Syria. It is unlikely that this infrastructure can be sustained solely by
national requirements, so the need to develop export markets is inevitable.

* The incentives to produce weapons of mass destruction are strong. Nations
seeking them are usually responding to local or regional disputes. But the
capabilities of the long-range missiles they are developing far exceed the
requirements of local or regional conflicts. Such long-range systems reflect a
desire to deter intervention by states outside their region. Ballistic missiles
and weapons of mass destruction also provide a source of hard currency earnings,
and diplomatic influence outside their immediate region.

Meanwhile, the disincentives to producing ballistic missiles are weak. Although
many nations seeking weapons of mass destruction have tactical aircraft to serve
as delivery systems, ballistic missiles are the delivery system of choice. The
reasons are clear. The cost of developing and operating long-range aircraft is
prohibitive and the infrastructure needed to support long-range cruise missiles
is sophisticated and costly. But ballistic missiles have attractive military
characteristics. There are relatively few defences deployed against them, and
operating costs and training requirements are low.

Thoroughly proven technology based on the second world war German V-2 and
Soviet-era Scud system is ubiquitous, as is foreign assistance to develop and
produce ballistic missiles. Moreover, Scud technology can be the building block
for ballistic missile systems from short range (up to 500km) to intercontinental
range (more than 5,500km).

Put these four developments together with the trend towards building missiles in
underground facilities, where they are out of sight, and it is clear that the
warning time for the deployment of ballistic missiles is shrinking fast.

There is even less time if unorthodox launch modes are employed, permitting the
use of shorter range ballistic missiles - for example, India's move towards
launching ballistic missiles from surface ships.

Both the US and Europe are vulnerable to such developments. But Europe is
threatened more immediately. Current developments will enable proliferators in
the Middle East and Asia to place all of Europe within range of ballistic
missiles within five years. Yet the continent is giving little thought to how it
can cope with this intensifying threat.

The author was a member of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat
to the United States

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 25, 1998, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Libya's chance

SECTION: LEADER; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 373 words

British and US agreement that the trial of the two Libyans suspected of bombing
PanAm flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, can be held
on "neutral" territory in the Netherlands is welcome news. Nearly 10 years after
the atrocity, and seven years after warrants were issued for the two Libyans'
arrest following the biggest criminal investigation in UK history, it may end a
stalemate.

If Libya hands over the two suspects, they will be tried by Scottish judges
under Scottish law; if convicted they will go to jail in Scotland. The neutral
venue meets Libya's central claim - that the two men could not expect a fair
trial in Scotland (or the US), and that it would be impossible to select an
unbiased jury. No less important, the family and friends of the 270 Lockerbie
victims will at last see a full airing of what happened, with the prospect of
those responsible being brought to justice.

The proposal will be made formally through the United Nations after the Security
Council has endorsed it. The UK and US have made clear it is not subject to
further negotiation.

London and Washington are right to go this unusual route. After representations
from Egypt, the Arab League and the Organisation for African Unity, they have
been mulling Muammer Gadaffi's demand for a "third country" trial venue for nine
months. Now this has been met, the mercurial Libyan leader has no excuse not to
hand the suspects over. Additionally, Libya now has the chance to emerge from
six years of debilitating UN sanctions. These would be reconsidered by the UN
the moment Libya surrenders the suspects; alternatively, if Col Gadaffi refuses
he could face something nearer the embargo that Iraq endures.

Tripoli has been more malleable of late, recently agreeing with France that six
Libyans accused of the contemporaneous bombing of a French airliner can now be
tried in absentia, and providing details to the UK of material it supplied to
the Provisional IRA.

After last week's US missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan, this is not the
most propitious moment for Mr Gadaffi's neighbours to urge his compliance. But
they should. What is being proposed, after all, is due legal process, not air
strikes.

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 25, 1998, Tuesday LONDON EDITION 1

Lockerbie bomb suspects may be tried in Netherlands

BYLINE: By Andrew Parker in London and Stephen Fidler in Washington

SECTION: BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 432 words

DATELINE: Washington

The UK and US governments yesterday moved to end the diplomatic stand off over
the Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing by proposing their trial be held on
neutral territory, in the Netherlands.

The latest plan would involve the Libyans being tried by three Scottish judges
at the Hague, which is the seat of the international court of justice, possibly
in May.

Robin Cook, foreign secretary, held out the prospect of the UN lifting its
sanctions against Libya if Muammer Gadaffi, the country's leader, accepted the
proposal. However, there were also intimations that sanctions might be toughened
if the proposal was turned down.

Mr Cook described the plan as an "historic innovation in international legal
practice". He had asked Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, to seek transfer
of the two Libyans to the Netherlands pending trial.

Libya had rejected the UK and US governments' previous insistence that the two
Libyans, Abdul Baset Ali Al Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, stand trial in
Scotland or the US over the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in
Scotland in 1988. All 259 passengers and crew were killed, together with 11
Lockerbie residents.

Lord Hardie, Scottish lord advocate, said he had reluctantly accepted that
unless the trial were held outside the UK or the US there was no prospect of the
two Libyans appearing before a Scottish court.

Alistair Duff, Scottish lawyer for the two Libyans, said: "This proposal is
certainly not being rejected", adding that his clients would need various
assurances before agreeing to stand trial at the Hague.

Mr Cook stressed that the court would administer Scottish law, under Scottish
procedures and Scottish rules of evidence. Under such conditions, a majority
verdict would be accepted.

Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, who spoke in a telephone conference
call to relatives of the victims yesterday morning, said the new proposal was "a
way to call the Libyan government's bluff and to bring the fugitives to justice
at long last".

She added: "Let me be clear: the plan the US and UK are putting forward is a
take-it-or-leave-it proposition. It is not subject to negotiation or change, nor
should it be the subject of any additional foot-dragging or delay."

Libya, she said, had stated its readiness to deliver suspects to a Scottish
court sitting in a third country.

A senior administration official said the proposal would be put before the UN
Security Council, which has repeatedly called for the Libyan government to hand
over the suspects. Editorial Comment, Page 15

LOAD-DATE: August 25, 1998

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Financial Times (London,England)

August 25, 1998, Tuesday USA EDITION 2

Proposal for Libyans' trial unveiled
LOCKERBIE BOMBING:

BYLINE: By Andrew Parker in London and Stephen Fidler in Washington

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 05

LENGTH: 457 words

DATELINE: Washington

The UK, US and Dutch governments last night unveiled a proposal to hold the
trial of two Libyans accused of perpetrating the Lockerbie bombing before a
Scottish court located in the Netherlands, possibly next May.

Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988. All 259
passengers and crew were killed, together with 11 Lockerbie residents.

The plan would involve the Libyans being tried by three Scottish judges at The

Hague, which is the seat of the international court of justice.

Robin Cook, British foreign secretary, held out the prospect of the UN lifting
its sanctions against Libya if Muammer Gadaffi, the country's leader, accepted
the plan. He described it as a "historic innovation in international legal
practice". The UK and US governments previously insisted Abdul Baset Ali Al
Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, the two Libyans, should stand trial in
Scotland or the US. Libya rejected that proposal.

Lord Hardie, Scottish lord advocate, said he had reluctantly accepted that
without the trial being held outside the UK or the US there was no prospect of
the two Libyans appearing before a Scottish court.

Mr Cook said the court would administer Scottish law, under Scottish procedures
and Scottish rules of evidence. A majority verdict would be accepted.

Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state, who spoke in a telephone conference
call to victims' relatives yesterday morning, said the proposal was "a way to
call the Libyan government's bluff and to bring the fugitives to justice at long
last".

"Let me be clear: the plan the US and UK are putting forward is a
take-it-or-leave it proposition. It is not subject to negotiation or change, nor
should it be the subject of any additional foot-dragging or delay." Libya, she
said, had repeatedly stated its readiness to deliver suspects to a Scottish
court sitting in a third country, an approach endorsed by the Arab League, the
Organisation of African Unity and other groupings.

A senior administration official said the proposal would be put before the UN
Security Council, which has repeatedly called for the Libyan government to hand
over the suspects, perhaps as soon as today.

A US official also said the US would press for a embargo of Libyan oil if
Tripoli did not agree to the proposal. The US has always favoured a multilateral
oil embargo but was unable to build a consensus. The official said that if Libya
rejected the new offer, more governments would be likely to back such an
embargo.

Alistair Duff, Scottish lawyer for the two Libyans, said his clients would need
various assurances before agreeing to stand trial at The Hague. "This proposal
is certainly not being rejected." Editorial comment, Page 11

LOAD-DATE: August 25, 1998

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

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